Jozef Mlot-Mroz

Jozef Mlot-Mroz (born Józef Wladyslaw Mróz; January 21, 1921 – October 31, 2002) was a Polish-American anti-communist, right-wing political activist and antisemitic conspiracy theorist.

During the Second World War, Mroz fought with the Polish Home Army against the German occupation of Poland, and after the war ended he continued to participate in subversive activities against communist authorities, for which he was imprisoned. After escaping Soviet captivity he fled to Germany and eventually immigrated to the United States, where he became a prolific anti-Communist protester and opponent of the civil rights movement known for his inflammatory protest signs and provocative activity.

A political conservative, Mroz opposed racial integration and abortion rights, and supported American involvement in the Vietnam War. His political positions were tied to his belief in antisemitic and white supremacist conspiracy theories, and shortly before his death it was revealed that the frequency of his activism was made possible by donations from wealthy far-right patrons.

Early years in Europe Józef Wladyslaw Mróz was born on January 21, 1921 to Kaspar and Helena Mróz (née Janocha) in the village of Herrmannsdorf (now known as Męcinka) in Lower Silesia, which at that time was part of the Weimar Republic but is now part of Poland. He attended public grammar school in Jedlicze, and high school and college in Krosno. He also indicated that he had seen success in previous hunger strikes during his imprisonment in Poland and while in a refugee camp in Germany. He planned to spend the duration of his hunger strike in his car, which he initially parked in front of the White House, but after Police forced him to move his car due to illegal parking he relocated to the ellipse at the rear of the White House. His car was adorned with American and Polish flags, and a four-sided sign which read: "We Demand Freedom for Poland and Captive Nations"; "Don't Shake Khrushchev's Bloody Hand"; "Wake Up Americans, Don’t Let Khrushchev Crush You"; and "Stop Communism Now". He said that he intended his strike to last for 7–11 days; it ultimately lasted 10 days during which he lost 27lbs. However, his hunger strike failed to attract the attention he had hoped for, as the Polish, Hungarian, Lithuanian and Estonian "patriots" he had expected to join him did not show up. At the end of his strike he declared his intention to wear a black armband during Khrushchev's time in the Washington, the color black having been adopted as a symbol of mourning by those opposed to Khrushchev's visit.

On Easter Sunday in April 1960, Mroz began a march from Boston to Washington D.C. along US Route 1 as a protest against the upcoming Four Powers Summit in Paris, scheduled for May 16. Carrying a sign reading "Stop Communism - It May Be Too Late Tomorrow", he indicated his intention to begin a second hunger strike upon his arrival in early May. On the evening of May 15, 1960 a 39-year-old Mroz was arrested at the top of the Washington Monument. He had hidden on the stairs inside the monument until after it closed to visitors, then broke the lock on the north window and unfurled a 110 foot streamer of black cloth. On June 30 the next year, Mroz padlocked himself to the ornamental railings at the front of the Soviet embassy, and was similarly sprayed with a garden hose by an embassy employee after Mroz threw the key to the padlock into some nearby bushes. The chain connecting him to the railing was cut by a police officer with bolt cutters, and he was subsequently arrested. In a 1960 incident in New York City he was severely beaten by police and subsequently hospitalized while protesting the visit of Soviet officials to the UN, and was charged with assaulting a police officer who had asked him to discard the metal bar he was using to hold his sign. In 1963, while participating in the "Rally for God and Country", he was arrested for disturbing the peace after burning a Soviet flag on Columbus Avenue near Boston's Statler-Hilton Hotel. In 1964 he picketed against American wheat shipments to the Soviet Union being loaded at East Boston's Pier 4, paddling around the T2 tanker ship Transorleans in a dinghy, while holding a sign that read: "Wheat For Russia Helps Reds to Bury Us!"

In April 1967, Mroz held a lone counter-demonstration in New York's Central Park against a peace march protesting the Vietnam War, holding a sign calling for the bombing of the North Vietnamese capital Hanoi to end "communism and Red termites". Some of the demonstrators at the march were members of the "League for Spiritual Democracy (LSD)", one of whom offered Mroz some of the hallucinogenic drug LSD, which he declined.

In January 1968, Mroz held a counter-protest outside the Boston courthouse where Dr Benjamin Spock and four others faced Federal charges of conspiring to aid draft evasion. After accusing one of Spock's supporters of being "a Red", the man replied "I'm not a Red" before punching Mroz in the face and knocking him to the ground.

Mroz served as the head of multiple anti-Communist organizations, including as chairman of the New England Captive Nations Committee. Mroz was also critical of post-war Germany, writing in April 1960 that "along with the communistic danger there appears another, that of Germany" which "begins to voice its opinion and perhaps tomorrow in unity with communism may endanger the peace of the world." He accused the Germans of using "specialized officers" to "falsify facts" and "portray the American way of thinking and outlook for their own benefit", concluding that "against these two dangers we must arouse public opinion" in order to secure peace.

Opposition to the Civil Rights Movement Mroz opposed policies that promoted racial integration, believing it to be a communist plot. In April 1965, he protested against a civil rights march in Boston led by Martin Luther King Jr. while holding a sign that described King as "a troublemaker" and "a liar"; quotes attributed to Harry Truman and J. Edgar Hoover, respectively. Mroz and other white picketers had marched into the crowd at the Carter Playground, but were quickly surrounded by chief marshal James Reed and other officials in order to prevent violence.

In 1965 he was fined $25 for assaulting civil rights leader Rev. Vernon E. Carter who was picketing in front of the School Committee headquarters, Approximately 150 marchers were gathered at the Blue Hill Christian Center at 288 Blue Hill Avenue, waiting to board buses to Providence, Rhode Island when Mroz arrived at the scene holding a sign that read: "I Am Fighting Poverty, I Work! Have You Tried It... It Works!" Despite the wording of his sign, he was by this point describing himself as a "retired" leather worker and still lived with his aunt and uncle.

Opposition to Pacifism Mroz also opposed pacifist movements, accusing them of being aligned with Communists. In August 1960, while counter-picketing a pacifist protest against the construction of Polaris missiles in Groton, Connecticut, he said: "I am against everything they stand for".

On April 3, 1967, 23-year-old John W. Gill pushed Jozef Mlot-Mroz into the Thames river in New London, Connecticut after Mroz set fire to a yellow canvas "submarine" that a group of pacifist protesters were attempting to launch from the city pier. Mroz had also been following the pacifists with a sign reading: "If we bombed Dresden and Nagasaki... Why not Hanoi?". Gill was not part of the pacifist group, but 26-year-old pacifist Martin Jezer jumped into the river to help Mroz. Gill was arrested for breach of the peace, but Mroz was not arrested because his actions were not witnessed by police and the pacifists would not sign a complaint. Gill was later cleared of wrongdoing as his actions were deemed a reasonable response to Mroz's attack, which the prosecutor described as "reprehensible".

Polish Freedom Fighters, Inc. In 1953, Mroz established the "Anti-Communist Confederation of Polish Freedom Fighters in U.S.A." (ACCPFF), also known as "Polish Freedom Fighters, Inc.", which claimed almost 2,000 members by mid-1971, although very few of them would ever join Mroz at his demonstrations. In 1987 the ACCPFF was described by The Lewiston Journal as "a one-man organization", Mroz reportedly adopted the label of "freedom fighter" after being mistakenly referred to as such by Cardinal Cushing. In 1972, Mroz presented the same award to Benjamin H. Freedman, a Catholic convert from Judaism notable for his denial of the holocaust. Other recipients included John Birch Society co-founder Robert Welch in 1961; President Franklin Roosevelt's son-in-law Colonel Curtis Dall in 1971;

In 1984, in a ceremony led by Mroz at the Cathedral of the Pines in Rindge, New Hampshire, the ACCPFF dedicated a memorial stone to the victims of the 1940 Katyn executions of Polish military officers during the Second World War.

Antisemitism Jozef Mlot-Mroz (fourth from right) presenting an award to holocaust-denier Benjamin H. Freedman (third from left) in 1972 Mroz's protests made frequent references to antisemitic conspiracy theories, to such an extent that in 1969 he was described by The Boston Globe as "an anti-Semite disguised as an anti-Communist". He often alleged that Communism was created by Jews to destroy Christianity, using signs with phrases like "Communism is Jewish", and equating Zionism with Communism despite the Soviet Union's official policy of anti-Zionism. He also accused Jews of conspiring against white people and protested against school desegregation busing in October 1974 while holding a sign that said "Enforced Busing is a Jewish-Communist Conspiracy to Destroy the Pure White Race!"

Almost all members of Mroz's "Polish Freedom Fighters" came from Poland's peasant class, and Mroz was open about the fact that antisemitism was a staple of his life in Poland. In a taped interview he said "In Poland, peasants and laborers, they was [sic] always working for the rich Jews" and "all the business of everything were in Jews hands, but the point isn't that you know, the point is that when in 1917 the Communists took over Russia, the Jew in Poland gets power", but was quick to yield when challenged on the historical accuracy of this claim, responding "well, they didn't get power but they started to." In 1987, Jozef Mlot-Mroz was described by Leonard Zakim of the Boston Anti-Defamation League as "one of the most notorious anti-Semites and racists in this entire area". After a Synagogue in Salem, Massachusetts was vandalized with antisemitic graffiti in the summer of that year, Mroz was arrested for breaking into the building the next day and attempting to cover up the graffiti to prevent it from generating sympathy towards the Jewish community. It was reported at one point in his life that Mroz had thus far attended 746 demonstrations, been arrested 69 times, and hospitalized 7 times. The source of his funding was a mystery for most of Mroz's life, though in 1968 he claimed to have spent at least $25,000 of his own money and an unknown amount in contributions by members of the ACCPFF. After Cotter's death in 1999, Mroz received $25,000 bequeathed to the ACCPFF in Cotter's will.

Personal life On January 11, 1970, he married Barbara C. Thompson in Townsend, Massachusetts and found work as a self-employed house painter. His public appearances thereafter diminished in frequency, but were by no means concluded. Mroz also attended a number of anti-abortion protests, and in one instance was chastised by Cardinal Law for holding an antisemitic placard. He was also a teetotaler and nonsmoker. He was buried in Saint Mary's Cemetery in Salem, Massachusetts. His wife Barbara died in 2013 and was buried alongside him.