Michele Renouf
Encyclopedia
Michèle Suzanne, Lady Renouf (née Mainwaring), (born 1946) is an Australia
n-born advertising model
, now a British
national, and a lifelong international television commercials actress with a thirty year membership of British Actors Equity.
She has become known in recent years for her defence of Holocaust deniers
such as David Irving
, Robert Faurisson
, Richard Williamson, Germar Rudolf
, Ernst Zündel
, and Fredrick Töben
in broadcasts and her Telling Films documentaries. Though not a revisionist author or researcher herself she has been frequently characterized by opponents as a Holocaust denier. Renouf is also known for speeches and articles criticising the rabbinical hermeneutics of Judaism
which have attracted considerable controversy.
, appearing in magazine advertisements and international television commercials. In her teens she became a beauty queen
, winning several titles including Miss Newcastle & Hunter Valley
1968. She was also active from childhood in charity fundraising, including with Radio 2HD
, and latterly as Miss Radio 2HD Beach Girl.
. During 1991-92, Renouf gained a diploma in Landscape Design
at the English Gardening School. From 1999 to 2001, she studied for a post-graduate degree in Psychology of Religion at the Heythrop College
of the University of London
.
and psychoanalyst, and descendant of Russian
nobility
whose family had fled from the collapsing Russian Empire
during the Bolshevik
October Revolution
in 1917, changing their surname on arrival in Persia. Mainwaring adopted his family title of Countess Griaznoff as a social tool to enhance charity fundraising.
During the 1970s and 1980s her charity related endeavours (which included aiding Russian refugees) regularly appeared in society publications such as Tatler
and the Court Circular
, including numerous events under Royal
patronage. At this time she was recruited to the Ladies Committee of the European-Atlantic Group
(after more than twenty years service she was ousted in 2000 after the Group's founder, former intelligence officer Elma Dangerfield, objected to Renouf inviting David Irving as her guest to an E-AG dinner). Negative publicity did not arise until her second marriage.
to reconstruct Germany
's postwar banking system. At the time of the wedding, Sir Francis was seventy-two years old and Michèle forty-four years of age.
Asked by the press about his reaction to marrying a Countess, Sir Francis told society columnist Nigel Dempster
: "... obviously it's a Russian title, but she's called Lady Renouf now so it doesn't matter." Their matrimonial home in Eaton Square
, Belgravia, was the former home of Neville Chamberlain
, the British Prime Minister from May 1937 to May 1940. Sir Francis was the focus of media interest after losing a substantial part of his fortune and investors' money in the 1987 stockmarket crash and undergoing a dramatic divorce from his second wife
in Sydney. The new Lady Renouf found herself the subject of their reporting, as there was already a considerable tabloid media circus surrounding Sir Francis's second wife. They interviewed her long estranged and terminally ill father Arthur Mainwaring, who was a Korean War
reconnaissance aerial photographer
and continued this role for the local Port Macquarie News. Arthur Mainwaring, whose parents owned a hotel by the ocean at The Entrance, had also been a part time courier driver to aid local businesses when travelling between his coastal home and his city studio 100 miles away (allowing the press to have further fun at Sir Francis's expense by portraying his new wife as the daughter of a truck driver). According to The Age, the marriage dissolved after a few months following articles which portrayed Lady Renouf as from humble origins in Australia (incorrectly suggesting that she had claimed noble origins herself, rather than as a courtesy title on account of her husband's heredity):
Sir Francis and Lady Renouf parted company shortly after the media ridicule surrounding their marriage, which formally ended in divorce five years later, despite his attempts at reconciliation. He suffered a heart attack and stroke soon after the divorce was finalised.
winning horse Generous
. During this same period she also designed an Elizabethan Knot and Maze Garden
for the reconstruction of William Shakespeare
’s Globe Theatre
.
, Heinz
, British Airways
, Supradyn Vitamins, Barclays, Capital One
, Tchibo
, Lenthéric, Ireland on Sunday
, Nescafé
, and France Telecom
.
She lost her starring role in the stage play Wagner by Rudolf Sabor after her writings, the controversial papers "Wagner and Judaism: Inspirational or Conspiratorial?", and "Moses and Wagner: Two Advertising Legends in Tribal Mystique" from the Heidelberg Conference in 1998, were brought to light.
. Surprised by the absence of mainstream media interest in their eyewitness testimony, she made her first documentary film Palestine Scrapbook which was screened at the House of Commons in 2001 and House of Lords
in 2002. A sequel Israel in Flagrante, featuring the anti-Zionist, haredi rabbis of the Neturei Karta
, was shown at the Cairo Anti-war Conference
in 2004. These interviews and other Palestine veterans' testimony are now archived at St. Antony's College, Oxford.
In 2006 she released the documentary "Jailing Opinions", and she is currently working on a new documentary called "Pious Piracy", which documents the thesis of philologist and Sanskrit
scholar Dr Christian Lindtner that the Lotus Sutra
is the blueprint for the Christian gospels.
, Colin Slee
, who objected to the possibility that his windows might be overlooked by members of the public.
She has said her interest began when a Jewish member of a committee which she had convened objected to suckling pig
being an option on the menu at a dinner she was organising in 1997 for the Globe
restoration. The Australian
traced the woman, a "retired American art gallery owner named Wylma Wayne", who denied Renouf's recollections and insisted that her objections had not been related to kosher issues.
A curiosity about the fear of being labelled antisemitic prompted her to research and produce a limited edition monograph in 1998 on Judaism and Wagner
's 19th century antisemitism. Her thesis was (and remains) that Jewish behaviour (as criticised by "antisemites") is not genetic but mimetic.
in a newspaper article on Irving's libel case against the historian Deborah Lipstadt
, she first became interested in the use of the religious term Holocaust
in relation to World War II history, having had no special interest in or knowledge of the period previously. She attended the two month long hearing and expressed interest in Irving's ideas and the reaction to them. "I found on Irving's side of the courtroom a solitary person representing himself, backed up by enormous forensic research and tremendously capable debate based on substance and fact... On the other side of the courtroom I saw 21-25 people with laptops connected it seems to the Israel
i government." In 2001, she attempted to obtain funding for David Irving
from the Saudi Prince Fahd bin Salman, though the latter individual died before arrangements could be made.
In the same year, she wrote a letter to the Evening Standard
newspaper in London complaining of biased BBC coverage of the Irving-Lipstadt trial, signing it "Lady Renouf, Reform Club
, 104 Pall Mall". This led to an unsuccessful effort to expel her from the Reform Club in September 2002, when she was defended by fellow Club member Bob Worcester
. In May 2003 Renouf's critics succeeded in expelling her from the Club, after a critical article in the Independent on Sunday by Johann Hari
- who at the time was taken as a reliable source, though he was discredited in 2011 after numerous allegations of plagiarism and faked interviews. Irving had already been banned by the club in 2001 (though he was not in breach of any club rule) after attending a function as Renouf's guest soon after losing his civil libel action.
After his arrest in Austria in 2005, Renouf organised financial support for David Irving's family, maintained his website and traveled with friends to Vienna
to support Irving during his trial for denying the Holocaust, saying "I am here to see a freed Irving and a freed Austria from this totalitarian law [punishing Holocaust denial]." Interviewed at the court, she called for "so-called Holocaust victims" to be "exhumed to see whether they died from typhoid
or gas". In November 2006 though, while Irving was in prison, the leadership of the far-right British National Party
, prevented her from addressing its Croydon branch on Irving's situation as "her presence would put the BNP in a bad light". The previous year, Renouf had shared a platform with Nick Griffin
and David Duke
in the United States.
, of the Adelaide Institute
, an organisation dedicated to exposing "the Holocaust myth", after he was arrested at London's Heathrow Airport under a European Arrest Warrant
. Renouf and Töben were appointed to the "International Fact Finding Committee on the Holocaust" at the conclusion of the Tehran Holocaust denial Conference in December 2006.
meetings, Real History Conferences and American Free Press
events in Europe, the U.S. and Canada, and attended the trials of Holocaust deniers
Ernst Zündel
, Germar Rudolf
and Robert Faurisson
, culminating in her DVD Jailing Opinions in 2006.
In 2004, Renouf attended The Institute for Historical Review conference in California, delivering a speech to hundreds. She attended the International Conference - Holocaust Review: A Global Vision
in Tehran
, Iran
, in December 2006. In her address, the "Psychology of Holocaustianity", she described Judaism as possessing a "dangerously misanthropic tendency" and "fundamentally anti-Gentile
narcissism
." In 2009, Renouf attended a European Parliament
-sponsored conference in Brussels
, titled "Denial and Democracy in Europe," where she gave an address.
During 2007-8 she appeared in televised debates with Rev. Dr. Stephen Sizer
, Dr. Norman Finkelstein
, former CIA station chief Dr. George Lambrakis, and Likud strategist Dmitry Shimelfarb as well as TV broadcasts with Dr. Christian Lindtner, Dr. Yaqub Zaki, Peter Rushton, Dr. Nicholas Kollerstrom
, Moeen Yaseen, Riad Al-Taher, Dr. Mohammad Saeed Bahmanpour and Press TV
's Between the Headlines.
Through her work, Renouf has met and associated with a wide-range of individuals representing many diverse causes. These include an appearance at the David Duke's EURO Conference in New Orleans in 2005, which included guests such as future European Union MP Nick Griffin
and Simon Darby from the British National Party
, Karl Richter of the Saxon parliament in Germany from the Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands, Swedish politician Vávra Suk
, as well as leaders from the National Front in France and South Africa.
In January 2009 she was photographed in Paris visiting the nightclub act of Dieudonné M'bala M'bala
with Robert Faurisson
and his family and friends on the occasion of Prof. Faurisson's 80th birthday.
In March 2009 she met former U.S. Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney
in London at the "Forum on Gaza Genocide: Solution for Palestine," where the two were photographed together. McKinney was attacked by the press for associating with the far-right.
. She spoke in favor of a more independent security council to correct the bias of the privileged veto, and advocated for support of Birobidjan.
, The Telegraph
, The Independent
, and The Times
in the United Kingdom
, the Washington Post and Huffington Post in the United States
, and ABC News and Sydney Morning Herald in Australia, as well as numerous other publications. She has been noted in library information and research services, and has been mentioned in books such as "Ahmadinejad on Palestine" by Dina Sulaeman, "Globalising Hatred: The New Antisemitism", published in 2009 by Denis MacShane
, "The Holocaust on Trial", published in 2002 by D.D. Guttenplan, "Report on anti-semitism in Argentina, Volume 1999", published in 2003 by the Delegación de Asociaciones Israelitas Argentinas. Centro de Estudios Sociales, and "Ahmadinejad: The Secret History of Iran's Radical Leader", published in 2008 by Kasra Naji.
in equivalent terms ("you don't have to be Jewish to be Jew-ish"). She has described Judaism
as a "repugnant and hate-filled religion." The European Jewish Congress quoted Renouf as telling the Tehran Holocaust denial Conference in 2006: "anti-Semitism is caused by the anti-gentile nature of Judaism".
She advocates adherence to the inseparable four classical virtues
, which she believes to be the basis of Western civilisation and the U.S. constitution.
She now has a website for what she terms "an all round common sense campaign option for the first Jewish homeland" of Birobidjan.
, but they archive no attendance records for such events. In Tehran she claimed to have been expelled for her views on Judaism from Heythrop College and officially asked to study elsewhere. This had followed her observation that the Principal of Heythrop had preached "to Jewish congregations in Reform Synagogues, that the two Biblical Covenants stand side by side. Thus, in spite of New Testament theology, Jesuits now defer to the first Covenant of the Old Testament (or Torah) between only the Chosen Children and their Jewish Godfather." A later journalistic attack on Renouf took the Principal's side, and claimed that the records indicate she was failed for not submitting any work for assessment.
nobility
. The Australian reports:
This media spin ignored the fact that, as Wikipedia's entry on the Almanach de Gotha
points out, "most princely families of the Russian Empire were not included in the Gotha at all" and the Gotha is renowned for its "condescending attitude towards Eastern European nobility and royalty". The notorious anomalies of the Almanach de Gotha's position on Russia are discussed by Nicholas Romanov, Prince of Russia.
The Griaznoff family was well known in Russian court circles for several centuries, since the time of Ivan the Terrible. The assassination of General Griaznoff in January 1906 was one of the most celebrated successes of a Russian revolutionary gang which included the young Joseph Stalin. In 1921 it became the subject of the first Soviet Georgian historical film, directed by Ivan Perestiani
, "The Murder of General Gryaznov".
During the fallout from her marriage to Sir Francis she had claimed her father was deceased, with the occupation of hotelier, on her marriage certificate. According to The Australian, her father, a "retired courier driver and photographer for the Port Macquarie News said he had never owned a hotel." Renouf believed her long-estranged and terminally ill father was dead at the time of her second marriage, and put hotelier on the certificate because among many other occupations he had been part of the family business, a long established hotel at The Entrance. For many years his main occupation was as an aerial photographer, and while travelling between The Entrance and his studio in Sydney
he assisted friends and local businesses, acting as a courier for packages.
.jpg)
, of the Simon Wiesenthal Centre in Jerusalem told The Australian newspaper: "This woman is especially dangerous, because she is so attractive and can put a pretty face on a very ugly movement." In February 2009 she contrasted the media's treatment of "controversial" analyses of Judaism with the widespread coverage given to the film on Islam
made by Dutch
parliamentarian Geert Wilders
.
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
n-born advertising model
Advertising
Advertising is a form of communication used to persuade an audience to take some action with respect to products, ideas, or services. Most commonly, the desired result is to drive consumer behavior with respect to a commercial offering, although political and ideological advertising is also common...
, now a British
British people
The British are citizens of the United Kingdom, of the Isle of Man, any of the Channel Islands, or of any of the British overseas territories, and their descendants...
national, and a lifelong international television commercials actress with a thirty year membership of British Actors Equity.
She has become known in recent years for her defence of Holocaust deniers
Holocaust denial
Holocaust denial is the act of denying the genocide of Jews in World War II, usually referred to as the Holocaust. The key claims of Holocaust denial are: the German Nazi government had no official policy or intention of exterminating Jews, Nazi authorities did not use extermination camps and gas...
such as David Irving
David Irving
David John Cawdell Irving is an English writer,best known for his denial of the Holocaust, who specialises in the military and political history of World War II, with a focus on Nazi Germany...
, Robert Faurisson
Robert Faurisson
Robert Faurisson is a French academic who is a Holocaust denier. Faurisson generated much controversy with a number of articles, published in the Journal of Historical Review and elsewhere, as well as various letters he has sent to French newspapers , which deny various aspects of the Holocaust,...
, Richard Williamson, Germar Rudolf
Germar Rudolf
Germar Rudolf is a German chemist and Holocaust denier.-Background:Rudolf was born in Limburg an der Lahn, Hesse. After finishing secondary education in 1983 in Remscheid, Rudolf studied chemistry in Bonn, completing his studies in 1989. As a student, he joined A.V. Tuisconia Königsberg zu Bonn...
, Ernst Zündel
Ernst Zündel
Ernst Christof Friedrich Zündel is a German Holocaust denier and pamphleteer who was jailed several times in Canada for publishing literature which "is likely to incite hatred against an identifiable group" and for being a threat to national security, in the United States for overstaying his visa,...
, and Fredrick Töben
Gerald Fredrick Töben
Gerald Fredrick Töben is a German-born Australian citizen and founder and former director of the Adelaide Institute. He is the author of numerous works on education, political science and history, although he is best known for his Holocaust denial. Töben claims he cannot deny that which never...
in broadcasts and her Telling Films documentaries. Though not a revisionist author or researcher herself she has been frequently characterized by opponents as a Holocaust denier. Renouf is also known for speeches and articles criticising the rabbinical hermeneutics of Judaism
Judaism
Judaism ) is the "religion, philosophy, and way of life" of the Jewish people...
which have attracted considerable controversy.
Early life
Born Michèle Mainwaring, in childhood she became a ballet dancer and Member of the Royal Academy of Dancing; and a modelModel (person)
A model , sometimes called a mannequin, is a person who is employed to display, advertise and promote commercial products or to serve as a subject of works of art....
, appearing in magazine advertisements and international television commercials. In her teens she became a beauty queen
Beauty Queen
"Beauty Queen" is the second song from Roxy Music's second album, For Your Pleasure. The lyrics refer to Ferry's girlfriend, Valerie Leon, one-time UK beauty queen, B-movie actress and model working in the Newcastle area, circa 1973.-Musicians:...
, winning several titles including Miss Newcastle & Hunter Valley
Hunter Valley
The Hunter Region, more commonly known as the Hunter Valley, is a region of New South Wales, Australia, extending from approximately to north of Sydney with an approximate population of 645,395 people. Most of the population of the Hunter Region lives within of the coast, with 55% of the entire...
1968. She was also active from childhood in charity fundraising, including with Radio 2HD
2HD
2HD is an Australian radio station, serving the lower Hunter Region. It operates at 1143 kHz on the AM band, from its studios along the Pacific Highway in the Newcastle suburb of Sandgate...
, and latterly as Miss Radio 2HD Beach Girl.
Education
In 1968 she graduated with a Diploma in Art (Education) after four years training at what became Newcastle Technical College, then affiliated to the National Art School and now part of the Hunter InstituteHunter Institute of TAFE
TAFE NSW - Hunter Institute has 15 campuses located in the Hunter and Central Coast regions. Its former names include Hunter Institute of TAFE and Hunter Institute of Technology.-External links:*...
. During 1991-92, Renouf gained a diploma in Landscape Design
Landscape design
Landscape design is an independent profession and a design and art tradition, practised by landscape designers, combining nature and culture. In contemporary practice landscape design bridges between landscape architecture and garden design.-Design scope:...
at the English Gardening School. From 1999 to 2001, she studied for a post-graduate degree in Psychology of Religion at the Heythrop College
Heythrop College
Heythrop College is the specialist philosophy and theology constituent college of the University of London situated in Kensington Square, Kensington, London. It offers undergraduate and postgraduate degrees in philosophy, theology and psychology, as well as research in related fields.It was founded...
of the University of London
University of London
-20th century:Shortly after 6 Burlington Gardens was vacated, the University went through a period of rapid expansion. Bedford College, Royal Holloway and the London School of Economics all joined in 1900, Regent's Park College, which had affiliated in 1841 became an official divinity school of the...
.
Daniel Ivan-Zadeh
Her first marriage in January 1970 was to Daniel Ivan-Zadeh, a consultant psychiatristPsychiatrist
A psychiatrist is a physician who specializes in the diagnosis and treatment of mental disorders. All psychiatrists are trained in diagnostic evaluation and in psychotherapy...
and psychoanalyst, and descendant of Russian
Russians
The Russian people are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Russia, speaking the Russian language and primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries....
nobility
Nobility
Nobility is a social class which possesses more acknowledged privileges or eminence than members of most other classes in a society, membership therein typically being hereditary. The privileges associated with nobility may constitute substantial advantages over or relative to non-nobles, or may be...
whose family had fled from the collapsing Russian Empire
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...
during the Bolshevik
Bolshevik
The Bolsheviks, originally also Bolshevists , derived from bol'shinstvo, "majority") were a faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party which split apart from the Menshevik faction at the Second Party Congress in 1903....
October Revolution
October Revolution
The October Revolution , also known as the Great October Socialist Revolution , Red October, the October Uprising or the Bolshevik Revolution, was a political revolution and a part of the Russian Revolution of 1917...
in 1917, changing their surname on arrival in Persia. Mainwaring adopted his family title of Countess Griaznoff as a social tool to enhance charity fundraising.
During the 1970s and 1980s her charity related endeavours (which included aiding Russian refugees) regularly appeared in society publications such as Tatler
Tatler
Tatler has been the name of several British journals and magazines, each of which has viewed itself as the successor of the original literary and society journal founded by Richard Steele in 1709. The current incarnation, founded in 1901, is a glossy magazine published by Condé Nast Publications...
and the Court Circular
Court Circular
The Court Circular is the official record that lists the engagements carried out by the Monarch of the United Kingdom and of the other Commonwealth Realms; the Royal Family; and appointments to their staff and to the court. It is issued by Buckingham Palace and printed a day in arrears at the back...
, including numerous events under Royal
British Royal Family
The British Royal Family is the group of close relatives of the monarch of the United Kingdom. The term is also commonly applied to the same group of people as the relations of the monarch in her or his role as sovereign of any of the other Commonwealth realms, thus sometimes at variance with...
patronage. At this time she was recruited to the Ladies Committee of the European-Atlantic Group
European-Atlantic Group
The European-Atlantic Group was founded in London in 1954 by Michael John Layton, 2nd Baron Layton , together with other members of both Houses of Parliament, Industrialists, Bankers, Economists, and Journalists and Mrs Elma Dangerfield...
(after more than twenty years service she was ousted in 2000 after the Group's founder, former intelligence officer Elma Dangerfield, objected to Renouf inviting David Irving as her guest to an E-AG dinner). Negative publicity did not arise until her second marriage.
Sir Frank Renouf
Her first marriage ended in a 1990 divorce, and in 1991 she married New Zealander Sir Francis Renouf, a merchant banker and former POW in a German camp, who had worked alongside Hermann Abs of the Deutsche BankDeutsche Bank
Deutsche Bank AG is a global financial service company with its headquarters in Frankfurt, Germany. It employs more than 100,000 people in over 70 countries, and has a large presence in Europe, the Americas, Asia Pacific and the emerging markets...
to reconstruct Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
's postwar banking system. At the time of the wedding, Sir Francis was seventy-two years old and Michèle forty-four years of age.
Asked by the press about his reaction to marrying a Countess, Sir Francis told society columnist Nigel Dempster
Nigel Dempster
Nigel Richard Patton Dempster was a British journalist, author, broadcaster and diarist. Best known for his celebrity gossip columns in newspapers, his work appeared in the Daily Express and Daily Mail and also in Private Eye magazine...
: "... obviously it's a Russian title, but she's called Lady Renouf now so it doesn't matter." Their matrimonial home in Eaton Square
Eaton Square
Eaton Square is a residential garden square in London's Belgravia district. It is one of the three garden squares built by the Grosvenor family when they developed the main part of Belgravia in the 19th century, and is named after Eaton Hall, the Grosvenor country house in Cheshire...
, Belgravia, was the former home of Neville Chamberlain
Neville Chamberlain
Arthur Neville Chamberlain FRS was a British Conservative politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from May 1937 to May 1940. Chamberlain is best known for his appeasement foreign policy, and in particular for his signing of the Munich Agreement in 1938, conceding the...
, the British Prime Minister from May 1937 to May 1940. Sir Francis was the focus of media interest after losing a substantial part of his fortune and investors' money in the 1987 stockmarket crash and undergoing a dramatic divorce from his second wife
Susan Renouf
Susan Renouf, Lady Renouf is an Australian socialite.Born Susan Rossiter to Sir John Rossiter and Joan Stewart, she was married three times:* to Andrew Peacock, prominent Australian politician...
in Sydney. The new Lady Renouf found herself the subject of their reporting, as there was already a considerable tabloid media circus surrounding Sir Francis's second wife. They interviewed her long estranged and terminally ill father Arthur Mainwaring, who was a Korean War
Korean War
The Korean War was a conventional war between South Korea, supported by the United Nations, and North Korea, supported by the People's Republic of China , with military material aid from the Soviet Union...
reconnaissance aerial photographer
Aerial photography
Aerial photography is the taking of photographs of the ground from an elevated position. The term usually refers to images in which the camera is not supported by a ground-based structure. Cameras may be hand held or mounted, and photographs may be taken by a photographer, triggered remotely or...
and continued this role for the local Port Macquarie News. Arthur Mainwaring, whose parents owned a hotel by the ocean at The Entrance, had also been a part time courier driver to aid local businesses when travelling between his coastal home and his city studio 100 miles away (allowing the press to have further fun at Sir Francis's expense by portraying his new wife as the daughter of a truck driver). According to The Age, the marriage dissolved after a few months following articles which portrayed Lady Renouf as from humble origins in Australia (incorrectly suggesting that she had claimed noble origins herself, rather than as a courtesy title on account of her husband's heredity):
"Their union collapsed in 1991 after only a few months, when Sir Frank reportedly discovered the then Countess Griaznoff was a truckie's daughter from The Entrance, on the NSW central coast and not a Russian noblewoman. He later described the marriage as a "nasty accident".
Sir Francis and Lady Renouf parted company shortly after the media ridicule surrounding their marriage, which formally ended in divorce five years later, despite his attempts at reconciliation. He suffered a heart attack and stroke soon after the divorce was finalised.
Lecturer and educator
Renouf spent time as a lecturer in Fine Arts at Queensland University of Technology shortly after graduating in 1968. She culminated twenty years ballet training by commencing a licentiateship in ballet teaching and choreography at the Royal Academy of Dance in Knightsbridge in 1970.Design
Renouf designed a hillside-sized maze garden for family friend Prince Fahd bin Salman in the form of a horse's head, as a tribute to the Saudi Prince's 1991 DerbyEpsom Derby
The Derby Stakes, popularly known as The Derby, internationally as the Epsom Derby, and under its present sponsor as the Investec Derby, is a Group 1 flat horse race in Great Britain open to three-year-old thoroughbred colts and fillies...
winning horse Generous
Generous (horse)
Generous is an Irish Thoroughbred racehorse who in 1991 won both Epsom and Irish Derbys. Sired by Caerleon, his grandsire was Nijinsky...
. During this same period she also designed an Elizabethan Knot and Maze Garden
Knot garden
A knot garden is a garden of very formal design in a square frame, consisting of a variety of aromatic plants and culinary herbs including germander, marjoram, thyme, southernwood, lemon balm, hyssop, costmary, acanthus, mallow, chamomile, rosemary, Calendulas, Violas and Santolina...
for the reconstruction of William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
’s Globe Theatre
Shakespeare's Globe
Shakespeare's Globe is a reconstruction of the Globe Theatre, an Elizabethan playhouse in the London Borough of Southwark, located on the south bank of the River Thames, but destroyed by fire in 1613, rebuilt 1614 then demolished in 1644. The modern reconstruction is an academic best guess, based...
.
Model and actress
Renouf is an international model and actress. She has appeared in television commercials worldwide, including advertisements for companies such as BMWBMW
Bayerische Motoren Werke AG is a German automobile, motorcycle and engine manufacturing company founded in 1916. It also owns and produces the Mini marque, and is the parent company of Rolls-Royce Motor Cars. BMW produces motorcycles under BMW Motorrad and Husqvarna brands...
, Heinz
H. J. Heinz Company
The H. J. Heinz Company , commonly known as Heinz and famous for its "57 Varieties" slogan and its ketchup, is an American food company with world headquarters in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.Perhaps best known for its ketchup, the H.J...
, British Airways
British Airways
British Airways is the flag carrier airline of the United Kingdom, based in Waterside, near its main hub at London Heathrow Airport. British Airways is the largest airline in the UK based on fleet size, international flights and international destinations...
, Supradyn Vitamins, Barclays, Capital One
Capital One
Capital One Financial Corp. is a U.S.-based bank holding company specializing in credit cards, home loans, auto loans, banking and savings products...
, Tchibo
Tchibo
Tchibo is a German chain of coffee shops and cafés, also known for its weekly-changing range of other products. The latter includes: clothing, household items, electronics and electrical appliances...
, Lenthéric, Ireland on Sunday
Ireland on Sunday
Ireland on Sunday was a Sunday newspaper in the Republic of Ireland, published by Associated Newspapers Ireland Limited, a subsidiary of the Daily Mail and General Trust plc...
, Nescafé
Nescafé
Nescafé is a brand of instant coffee made by Nestlé. It comes in the form of many different products. The name is a portmanteau of the words "Nestlé" and "café". Nestlé's flagship powdered coffee product was introduced in Switzerland on April 1, 1938 after being developed for seven or eight years...
, and France Telecom
France Télécom
France Telecom S.A. is the main telecommunications company in France, the third-largest in Europe and one of the largest in the world. It currently employs about 180,000 people and has 192.7 million customers worldwide . In 2010 the group had revenue of €45.5 billion...
.
She lost her starring role in the stage play Wagner by Rudolf Sabor after her writings, the controversial papers "Wagner and Judaism: Inspirational or Conspiratorial?", and "Moses and Wagner: Two Advertising Legends in Tribal Mystique" from the Heidelberg Conference in 1998, were brought to light.
Film producer
In 2001 she archived on film a series of interviews with British veterans of the 1945-48 conflict in PalestinePalestine
Palestine is a conventional name, among others, used to describe the geographic region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, and various adjoining lands....
. Surprised by the absence of mainstream media interest in their eyewitness testimony, she made her first documentary film Palestine Scrapbook which was screened at the House of Commons in 2001 and House of Lords
House of Lords
The House of Lords is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminster....
in 2002. A sequel Israel in Flagrante, featuring the anti-Zionist, haredi rabbis of the Neturei Karta
Neturei Karta
Neturei Karta is a Haredi Jewish group formally created in Jerusalem, British Mandate of Palestine, in 1938, splitting off from Agudas Yisroel...
, was shown at the Cairo Anti-war Conference
Cairo Anti-war Conference
The Cairo Conference against U.S. hegemony and war on Iraq and in solidarity with Palestine , generally known simply as Cairo Anti-war Conference, is an anti-war and anti-neo-liberalism conference held regularly since 2002 in Cairo, Egypt...
in 2004. These interviews and other Palestine veterans' testimony are now archived at St. Antony's College, Oxford.
In 2006 she released the documentary "Jailing Opinions", and she is currently working on a new documentary called "Pious Piracy", which documents the thesis of philologist and Sanskrit
Sanskrit
Sanskrit , is a historical Indo-Aryan language and the primary liturgical language of Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism.Buddhism: besides Pali, see Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Today, it is listed as one of the 22 scheduled languages of India and is an official language of the state of Uttarakhand...
scholar Dr Christian Lindtner that the Lotus Sutra
Lotus Sutra
The Lotus Sūtra is one of the most popular and influential Mahāyāna sūtras, and the basis on which the Tiantai and Nichiren sects of Buddhism were established.-Title:...
is the blueprint for the Christian gospels.
Charity
Globe Theatre Advisory Board
During her honeymoon in New Zealand in the early 1990s, Renouf had been invited to add stitches to a giant New Zealand wool tapestry curtain which was its national contribution to the Globe Theatre reconstruction project. This led to her joining the Globe's advisory board on her return to London and raising funds for the restoration. Renouf and her "Coterie" sponsored the building of the Globe's Wardrobe of Robes Room. Her design for an Elizabethan Knot Garden outside the Globe was blocked by the Provost of Southwark CathedralSouthwark Cathedral
Southwark Cathedral or The Cathedral and Collegiate Church of St Saviour and St Mary Overie, Southwark, London, lies on the south bank of the River Thames close to London Bridge....
, Colin Slee
Colin Slee
The Very Rev Colin Slee was a clergyman in the Church of England, most notable for his final post as Dean of Southwark Cathedral, a post he held from 1994 until his death...
, who objected to the possibility that his windows might be overlooked by members of the public.
Activism
After providing legal support to Bishop Richard Williamson, Renouf explained to The Sunday Telegraph in March 2009, "our concern is not Holocaust denial, but debate denial. People should have the freedom to question the accepted view of what happened. That questioning is part of our culture."She has said her interest began when a Jewish member of a committee which she had convened objected to suckling pig
Suckling pig
A suckling pig is a piglet fed on its mother's milk . In culinary, a suckling pig is slaughtered between the ages of two and six weeks. It is traditionally cooked whole, often roasted, in various cuisines...
being an option on the menu at a dinner she was organising in 1997 for the Globe
Shakespeare's Globe
Shakespeare's Globe is a reconstruction of the Globe Theatre, an Elizabethan playhouse in the London Borough of Southwark, located on the south bank of the River Thames, but destroyed by fire in 1613, rebuilt 1614 then demolished in 1644. The modern reconstruction is an academic best guess, based...
restoration. The Australian
The Australian
The Australian is a broadsheet newspaper published in Australia from Monday to Saturday each week since 14 July 1964. The editor in chief is Chris Mitchell, the editor is Clive Mathieson and the 'editor-at-large' is Paul Kelly....
traced the woman, a "retired American art gallery owner named Wylma Wayne", who denied Renouf's recollections and insisted that her objections had not been related to kosher issues.
A curiosity about the fear of being labelled antisemitic prompted her to research and produce a limited edition monograph in 1998 on Judaism and Wagner
Richard Wagner
Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, conductor, theatre director, philosopher, music theorist, poet, essayist and writer primarily known for his operas...
's 19th century antisemitism. Her thesis was (and remains) that Jewish behaviour (as criticised by "antisemites") is not genetic but mimetic.
David Irving
When Renouf read a quotation from Holocaust denier David IrvingDavid Irving
David John Cawdell Irving is an English writer,best known for his denial of the Holocaust, who specialises in the military and political history of World War II, with a focus on Nazi Germany...
in a newspaper article on Irving's libel case against the historian Deborah Lipstadt
Deborah Lipstadt
Deborah Esther Lipstadt, Ph.D. is an American historian and author of the book Denying the Holocaust and The Eichmann Trial. She is the Dorot Professor of Modern Jewish and Holocaust Studies at Emory University...
, she first became interested in the use of the religious term Holocaust
Holocaust (sacrifice)
A holocaust is a religious animal sacrifice that is completely consumed by fire. The word derives from the Ancient Greek holocaustos , which is used solely for one of the major forms of sacrifice....
in relation to World War II history, having had no special interest in or knowledge of the period previously. She attended the two month long hearing and expressed interest in Irving's ideas and the reaction to them. "I found on Irving's side of the courtroom a solitary person representing himself, backed up by enormous forensic research and tremendously capable debate based on substance and fact... On the other side of the courtroom I saw 21-25 people with laptops connected it seems to the Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
i government." In 2001, she attempted to obtain funding for David Irving
David Irving
David John Cawdell Irving is an English writer,best known for his denial of the Holocaust, who specialises in the military and political history of World War II, with a focus on Nazi Germany...
from the Saudi Prince Fahd bin Salman, though the latter individual died before arrangements could be made.
In the same year, she wrote a letter to the Evening Standard
Evening Standard
The Evening Standard, now styled the London Evening Standard, is a free local daily newspaper, published Monday–Friday in tabloid format in London. It is the dominant regional evening paper for London and the surrounding area, with coverage of national and international news and City of London...
newspaper in London complaining of biased BBC coverage of the Irving-Lipstadt trial, signing it "Lady Renouf, Reform Club
Reform Club
The Reform Club is a gentlemen's club on the south side of Pall Mall, in central London. Originally for men only, it changed to include the admission of women in 1981. In 2011 the subscription for membership of the Reform Club as a full UK member is £1,344.00, with a one-off entrance fee of £875.00...
, 104 Pall Mall". This led to an unsuccessful effort to expel her from the Reform Club in September 2002, when she was defended by fellow Club member Bob Worcester
Robert Worcester
Sir Robert Milton Worcester, KBE, DL is the founder of MORI and a member and contributor to many voluntary organisations. He is a well known figure in British public opinion research and political circles and as a media commentator, especially about voting intentions in British and American...
. In May 2003 Renouf's critics succeeded in expelling her from the Club, after a critical article in the Independent on Sunday by Johann Hari
Johann Hari
Johann Hari is an award winning British journalist who has been a columnist at The Independent, the The Huffington Post, and contributed to several other publications. In 2011, Hari was accused of plagiarism; he subsequently was suspended from The Independent and surrendered his 2008 Orwell Prize...
- who at the time was taken as a reliable source, though he was discredited in 2011 after numerous allegations of plagiarism and faked interviews. Irving had already been banned by the club in 2001 (though he was not in breach of any club rule) after attending a function as Renouf's guest soon after losing his civil libel action.
After his arrest in Austria in 2005, Renouf organised financial support for David Irving's family, maintained his website and traveled with friends to Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
to support Irving during his trial for denying the Holocaust, saying "I am here to see a freed Irving and a freed Austria from this totalitarian law [punishing Holocaust denial]." Interviewed at the court, she called for "so-called Holocaust victims" to be "exhumed to see whether they died from typhoid
Typhus
Epidemic typhus is a form of typhus so named because the disease often causes epidemics following wars and natural disasters...
or gas". In November 2006 though, while Irving was in prison, the leadership of the far-right British National Party
British National Party
The British National Party is a British far-right political party formed as a splinter group from the National Front by John Tyndall in 1982...
, prevented her from addressing its Croydon branch on Irving's situation as "her presence would put the BNP in a bad light". The previous year, Renouf had shared a platform with Nick Griffin
Nick Griffin
Nicholas John "Nick" Griffin is a British politician, chairman of the British National Party and Member of the European Parliament for North West England....
and David Duke
David Duke
David Ernest Duke is a former Grand Wizard of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan an American activist and writer, and former Republican Louisiana State Representative. He was also a former candidate in the Republican presidential primaries in 1992, and in the Democratic presidential primaries in...
in the United States.
Fredrick Töben
In October–November 2008, Renouf recruited lawyers for the Australian Fredrick TöbenGerald Fredrick Töben
Gerald Fredrick Töben is a German-born Australian citizen and founder and former director of the Adelaide Institute. He is the author of numerous works on education, political science and history, although he is best known for his Holocaust denial. Töben claims he cannot deny that which never...
, of the Adelaide Institute
Adelaide Institute
Established in 1994, the Adelaide Institute was formed from the former Truth Mission that was established in 1994 by Dr. Gerald Fredrick Töben. The Adelaide Institute is a Holocaust denial group in Australia and is considered to be anti-Semitic by the Australian government's human rights...
, an organisation dedicated to exposing "the Holocaust myth", after he was arrested at London's Heathrow Airport under a European Arrest Warrant
European Arrest Warrant
The European Arrest Warrant is an arrest warrant valid throughout all member states of the European Union . Once issued by a member state, it requires the receiving member state to arrest and transfer a criminal suspect or sentenced person to the issuing state so that the person can be put on...
. Renouf and Töben were appointed to the "International Fact Finding Committee on the Holocaust" at the conclusion of the Tehran Holocaust denial Conference in December 2006.
Bishop Richard Williamson
Within weeks of the Töben defence team's success, a new legal threat was posed to the British Bishop Richard Williamson following the broadcast by Swedish television of his comments disputing the Holocaust. Knowing of the legal precedent achieved after Renouf's mobilisation of the Töben defence team, the Bishop's supporters arranged for Renouf to attend Heathrow Airport on 25 February 2009, in readiness with her legal defence team poised to assist Williamson with his arrival in London. This was in case he was detained in similar fashion to Töben.Conferences, debates, trials, and associations
Between 2004 and 2006 Renouf spoke at numerous Holocaust denialHolocaust denial
Holocaust denial is the act of denying the genocide of Jews in World War II, usually referred to as the Holocaust. The key claims of Holocaust denial are: the German Nazi government had no official policy or intention of exterminating Jews, Nazi authorities did not use extermination camps and gas...
meetings, Real History Conferences and American Free Press
American Free Press
The American Free Press is a weekly newspaper published in the United States.According to one former correspondent, the newspaper's direct ancestor was the publication The Spotlight, which ceased publication in 2001 when its parent company, Liberty Lobby, was forced into bankruptcy...
events in Europe, the U.S. and Canada, and attended the trials of Holocaust deniers
Holocaust denial
Holocaust denial is the act of denying the genocide of Jews in World War II, usually referred to as the Holocaust. The key claims of Holocaust denial are: the German Nazi government had no official policy or intention of exterminating Jews, Nazi authorities did not use extermination camps and gas...
Ernst Zündel
Ernst Zündel
Ernst Christof Friedrich Zündel is a German Holocaust denier and pamphleteer who was jailed several times in Canada for publishing literature which "is likely to incite hatred against an identifiable group" and for being a threat to national security, in the United States for overstaying his visa,...
, Germar Rudolf
Germar Rudolf
Germar Rudolf is a German chemist and Holocaust denier.-Background:Rudolf was born in Limburg an der Lahn, Hesse. After finishing secondary education in 1983 in Remscheid, Rudolf studied chemistry in Bonn, completing his studies in 1989. As a student, he joined A.V. Tuisconia Königsberg zu Bonn...
and Robert Faurisson
Robert Faurisson
Robert Faurisson is a French academic who is a Holocaust denier. Faurisson generated much controversy with a number of articles, published in the Journal of Historical Review and elsewhere, as well as various letters he has sent to French newspapers , which deny various aspects of the Holocaust,...
, culminating in her DVD Jailing Opinions in 2006.
In 2004, Renouf attended The Institute for Historical Review conference in California, delivering a speech to hundreds. She attended the International Conference - Holocaust Review: A Global Vision
International Conference to Review the Global Vision of the Holocaust
The International Conference to Review the Global Vision of the Holocaust was a two-day conference that opened on December 11, 2006, in Tehran, Iran. Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said the conference sought "neither to deny nor prove the Holocaust.....
in Tehran
Tehran
Tehran , sometimes spelled Teheran, is the capital of Iran and Tehran Province. With an estimated population of 8,429,807; it is also Iran's largest urban area and city, one of the largest cities in Western Asia, and is the world's 19th largest city.In the 20th century, Tehran was subject to...
, Iran
Iran
Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...
, in December 2006. In her address, the "Psychology of Holocaustianity", she described Judaism as possessing a "dangerously misanthropic tendency" and "fundamentally anti-Gentile
Gentile
The term Gentile refers to non-Israelite peoples or nations in English translations of the Bible....
narcissism
Narcissism
Narcissism is a term with a wide range of meanings, depending on whether it is used to describe a central concept of psychoanalytic theory, a mental illness, a social or cultural problem, or simply a personality trait...
." In 2009, Renouf attended a European Parliament
European Parliament
The European Parliament is the directly elected parliamentary institution of the European Union . Together with the Council of the European Union and the Commission, it exercises the legislative function of the EU and it has been described as one of the most powerful legislatures in the world...
-sponsored conference in Brussels
Brussels
Brussels , officially the Brussels Region or Brussels-Capital Region , is the capital of Belgium and the de facto capital of the European Union...
, titled "Denial and Democracy in Europe," where she gave an address.
During 2007-8 she appeared in televised debates with Rev. Dr. Stephen Sizer
Stephen Sizer
The Reverend Dr Stephen Robert Sizer is the incumbent at Christ Church, Virginia Water, an Anglican parish in Surrey, England. In addition to his parish ministry, he has a number of external roles and is known internationally as an author and speaker specialising in topics relating to the land of...
, Dr. Norman Finkelstein
Norman Finkelstein
Norman Gary Finkelstein is an American political scientist, activist and author. His primary fields of research are the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the politics of the Holocaust. He is a graduate of Binghamton University and received his Ph.D in Political Science from Princeton University...
, former CIA station chief Dr. George Lambrakis, and Likud strategist Dmitry Shimelfarb as well as TV broadcasts with Dr. Christian Lindtner, Dr. Yaqub Zaki, Peter Rushton, Dr. Nicholas Kollerstrom
Nicholas Kollerstrom
Nicholas Kollerstrom is an English writer and historian of science. He is a former honorary research fellow in Science and Technology Studies at University College, London , and a former lunar gardening correspondent for the BBC...
, Moeen Yaseen, Riad Al-Taher, Dr. Mohammad Saeed Bahmanpour and Press TV
Press TV
Press TV is a 24-hour English language global news network owned by the Iranian government. Its headquarters are located in Tehran, Iran, with bureaux in Beirut , Damascus , London , Seoul and Washington DC ....
's Between the Headlines.
Through her work, Renouf has met and associated with a wide-range of individuals representing many diverse causes. These include an appearance at the David Duke's EURO Conference in New Orleans in 2005, which included guests such as future European Union MP Nick Griffin
Nick Griffin
Nicholas John "Nick" Griffin is a British politician, chairman of the British National Party and Member of the European Parliament for North West England....
and Simon Darby from the British National Party
British National Party
The British National Party is a British far-right political party formed as a splinter group from the National Front by John Tyndall in 1982...
, Karl Richter of the Saxon parliament in Germany from the Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands, Swedish politician Vávra Suk
Vávra Suk
Vávra Suk is a nationalist politician in Sweden. He is currently the party secretary of the National Democrats.- References :...
, as well as leaders from the National Front in France and South Africa.
In January 2009 she was photographed in Paris visiting the nightclub act of Dieudonné M'bala M'bala
Dieudonné M'bala M'bala
Dieudonné M'bala M'bala , generally known simply as Dieudonné, is a French comedian, actor and political activist....
with Robert Faurisson
Robert Faurisson
Robert Faurisson is a French academic who is a Holocaust denier. Faurisson generated much controversy with a number of articles, published in the Journal of Historical Review and elsewhere, as well as various letters he has sent to French newspapers , which deny various aspects of the Holocaust,...
and his family and friends on the occasion of Prof. Faurisson's 80th birthday.
In March 2009 she met former U.S. Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney
Cynthia McKinney
Cynthia Ann McKinney is a former US Congresswoman and a member of the Green Party since 2007. As a member of the Democratic Party, she served six terms as a member of the United States House of Representatives. In 2008, the Green Party nominated McKinney for President of the United States...
in London at the "Forum on Gaza Genocide: Solution for Palestine," where the two were photographed together. McKinney was attacked by the press for associating with the far-right.
International affairs
In January 2010, Renouf participated in a conference on the U.N. Security Council at the British House of Lords, which included former British ambassador Oliver MilesOliver Miles
Richard Oliver Miles is a retired British Ambassador. He is chairman of the international business development company MEC International.-Background:...
. She spoke in favor of a more independent security council to correct the bias of the privileged veto, and advocated for support of Birobidjan.
Literature references
Renouf has been mentioned throughout the world in the news, from The GuardianThe Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
, The Telegraph
The Daily Telegraph
The Daily Telegraph is a daily morning broadsheet newspaper distributed throughout the United Kingdom and internationally. The newspaper was founded by Arthur B...
, The Independent
The Independent
The Independent is a British national morning newspaper published in London by Independent Print Limited, owned by Alexander Lebedev since 2010. It is nicknamed the Indy, while the Sunday edition, The Independent on Sunday, is the Sindy. Launched in 1986, it is one of the youngest UK national daily...
, and The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
in the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
, the Washington Post and Huffington Post in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, and ABC News and Sydney Morning Herald in Australia, as well as numerous other publications. She has been noted in library information and research services, and has been mentioned in books such as "Ahmadinejad on Palestine" by Dina Sulaeman, "Globalising Hatred: The New Antisemitism", published in 2009 by Denis MacShane
Denis MacShane
Denis MacShane is a British politician, who has been the Member of Parliament for Rotherham since the 1994 by-election and served as the Minister for Europe from 2002 until 2005, as well as being a current Policy Council member for Labour Friends of Israel.On 14 October 2010, it was announced...
, "The Holocaust on Trial", published in 2002 by D.D. Guttenplan, "Report on anti-semitism in Argentina, Volume 1999", published in 2003 by the Delegación de Asociaciones Israelitas Argentinas. Centro de Estudios Sociales, and "Ahmadinejad: The Secret History of Iran's Radical Leader", published in 2008 by Kasra Naji.
Personal views
Renouf claims not to be antisemitic on the grounds that she does not regard Judaism as genetic and criticises Christian ZionismChristian Zionism
Christian Zionism is a belief among some Christians that the return of the Jews to the Holy Land, and the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, is in accordance with Biblical prophecy. It overlaps with, but is distinct from, the nineteenth century movement for the Restoration of the Jews...
in equivalent terms ("you don't have to be Jewish to be Jew-ish"). She has described Judaism
Judaism
Judaism ) is the "religion, philosophy, and way of life" of the Jewish people...
as a "repugnant and hate-filled religion." The European Jewish Congress quoted Renouf as telling the Tehran Holocaust denial Conference in 2006: "anti-Semitism is caused by the anti-gentile nature of Judaism".
She advocates adherence to the inseparable four classical virtues
Cardinal virtues
In Christian traditionthere are 4 cardinal virtues:*Prudence - able to judge between actions with regard to appropriate actions at a given time*Justice - proper moderation between self-interest and the rights and needs of others...
, which she believes to be the basis of Western civilisation and the U.S. constitution.
She now has a website for what she terms "an all round common sense campaign option for the first Jewish homeland" of Birobidjan.
Education
Renouf has claimed her collegiate studies in Australia also involved summer schools at the Sydney campus of the National Art SchoolNational Art School
The National Art School is an art school in Sydney, Australia. It is a Public Company Limited by Guarantee with a board of directors. It has Institutional Registration and Course Accreditation supported by the DET Higher Education Directorate....
, but they archive no attendance records for such events. In Tehran she claimed to have been expelled for her views on Judaism from Heythrop College and officially asked to study elsewhere. This had followed her observation that the Principal of Heythrop had preached "to Jewish congregations in Reform Synagogues, that the two Biblical Covenants stand side by side. Thus, in spite of New Testament theology, Jesuits now defer to the first Covenant of the Old Testament (or Torah) between only the Chosen Children and their Jewish Godfather." A later journalistic attack on Renouf took the Principal's side, and claimed that the records indicate she was failed for not submitting any work for assessment.
Marriages
Renouf claimed her first husband, Daniel Ivan-Zadeh, to have been of RussianRussians
The Russian people are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Russia, speaking the Russian language and primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries....
nobility
Nobility
Nobility is a social class which possesses more acknowledged privileges or eminence than members of most other classes in a society, membership therein typically being hereditary. The privileges associated with nobility may constitute substantial advantages over or relative to non-nobles, or may be...
. The Australian reports:
"Ivan-Zadeh had always been plain “Mr” or “Doctor” but Renouf says the family had once claimed a title through his great-uncle, so she began styling herself as Countess Griaznoff “for my charity work”. No such title exists in the major lists of European noble families such as the Almanach de Gotha or Burke’s Royal Families of the World."
This media spin ignored the fact that, as Wikipedia's entry on the Almanach de Gotha
Almanach de Gotha
The Almanach de Gotha was a respected directory of Europe's highest nobility and royalty. First published in 1763 by C.W. Ettinger in Gotha at the ducal court of Frederick III, Duke of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg, it was regarded as an authority in the classification of monarchies, princely and ducal...
points out, "most princely families of the Russian Empire were not included in the Gotha at all" and the Gotha is renowned for its "condescending attitude towards Eastern European nobility and royalty". The notorious anomalies of the Almanach de Gotha's position on Russia are discussed by Nicholas Romanov, Prince of Russia.
The Griaznoff family was well known in Russian court circles for several centuries, since the time of Ivan the Terrible. The assassination of General Griaznoff in January 1906 was one of the most celebrated successes of a Russian revolutionary gang which included the young Joseph Stalin. In 1921 it became the subject of the first Soviet Georgian historical film, directed by Ivan Perestiani
Ivan Perestiani
Ivan Nikolaevich Perestiani was a film director, script-writer and actor, People's Artist of the Georgian SSR . He was an ethnic Greek, his original name being Giannis Nikolas Perestianis.-Biography:...
, "The Murder of General Gryaznov".
During the fallout from her marriage to Sir Francis she had claimed her father was deceased, with the occupation of hotelier, on her marriage certificate. According to The Australian, her father, a "retired courier driver and photographer for the Port Macquarie News said he had never owned a hotel." Renouf believed her long-estranged and terminally ill father was dead at the time of her second marriage, and put hotelier on the certificate because among many other occupations he had been part of the family business, a long established hotel at The Entrance. For many years his main occupation was as an aerial photographer, and while travelling between The Entrance and his studio in Sydney
Sydney
Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...
he assisted friends and local businesses, acting as a courier for packages.
Involvement in Holocaust denial movements
Opponents are concerned about Renouf's role in the Holocaust denial movement. Efraim ZuroffEfraim Zuroff
Efraim Zuroff is an Israeli historian of American origin, who has played a role in bringing Nazis indicted for war crimes to trial...
, of the Simon Wiesenthal Centre in Jerusalem told The Australian newspaper: "This woman is especially dangerous, because she is so attractive and can put a pretty face on a very ugly movement." In February 2009 she contrasted the media's treatment of "controversial" analyses of Judaism with the widespread coverage given to the film on Islam
Islam
Islam . The most common are and . : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...
made by Dutch
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
parliamentarian Geert Wilders
Geert Wilders
Geert Wilders is a Dutch right-wing politician and leader of the Party for Freedom , the third-largest political party in the Netherlands. He is the Parliamentary group leader of his party in the Dutch House of Representatives...
.
Security threats
In November 2008, Renouf was scheduled to appear again at David Duke's annual EURO Conference, this time held in Memphis. However, the original conference was cancelled after bomb threats were made and the hotel decided the conference was not in their interest. Renouf would not come for the secondary conference held at another location.External links
- Michèle Renouf showreel (1987-2007)
- "Demonstration for Opinion Freedom at Frankfurt Book Fair" in 2009
- "Fredrick Töben's victory" in 2008
- "Finkelstein-Renouf Debate: Teheran Holocaust Conference" in 2007
- "Debate on French Presidency and New World Order" in 2007 with former CIA station chief Dr. George Lambrakis
- Speech at International Conference to Review the Global Vision of the HolocaustInternational Conference to Review the Global Vision of the HolocaustThe International Conference to Review the Global Vision of the Holocaust was a two-day conference that opened on December 11, 2006, in Tehran, Iran. Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said the conference sought "neither to deny nor prove the Holocaust.....
in 2006