An avalanche of hate: How a Montana mom became the target of a neo-Nazi troll storm

Whitefish, Montana (CNN)Once the calls began, they did not stop. Swiping to decline a call just led to the phone ringing again. Blocked number after blocked number filled up the voice mail.

Deleting one message just created space for another to take its place.

Then came the tweets and the email messages.

The volume was overwhelming. The content: vile and terrifying.

Gunshots rang out from voice mails. Emails and texts read: "I hope you die," "Kill yourself," "We will take pleasure in your pain."

Tanya Gersh found herself buried in an avalanche of hate, one she had not seen coming and one that focused on one fact: She's Jewish.

Gersh was called a "bitch," "a worthless c**t," and told countless times she was nothing more than a filthy "k**e." The vile and ugly words were spelled out in full when sent to Gersh.

The messages began late at night and continued into the early hours, keeping her family awake. Or there was a night of silence, broken by an onslaught at 4 a.m., jolting the family from sleep.

One voice mail -- "You are surprisingly easy to find on the Internet. And in real life" -- ended Gersh's lifelong practice of leaving her home and car unlocked in her little Montana town, nestled by a lake in the Rocky Mountains.

It became unbearable, Gersh said. She described panic attacks, vomiting, shaking and sweating. And then the times she could not even catch her breath.

Now, she was in fear of almost anyone she met. Her old way of life had been washed away. She was now in an America full of hate. It was an America where racism and bigotry have powerful online platforms.

Gersh learned that one blog post could lead to an anonymous online assault by a group of hateful people hell bent on destroying her life. All it took was a few keystrokes, amplified by a social media megaphone, to send the deluge of repulsive messages her way and heighten tensions in this quaint ski resort town.

All because of what started, Gersh says, as a "mother-to-mother" chat.

Gersh appears to have become a target for hate after contacting tenants of a local building. Gersh says she was then called by the building's owner, Sherry Spencer, the mother of white supremacist Richard Spencer.

This mixed-use property was at the center of a dispute between Sherry Spencer and Tanya Gersh.

Gersh says she warned Sherry Spencer about looming protests at the building in Whitefish, a Montana town of 7,300 where both women live.

Gersh says she advised Spencer to disavow the views of her son, including that the United States is a country for white people. She says she offered to sell Spencer's property as of a way of defusing tensions in town. Gersh suggested Spencer donate money to a human rights group.

Sherry Spencer refused to speak to CNN when we reached her on the phone. Earlier, she wrote in a blog post that Gersh, a Realtor, had threatened her, saying protesters and media would turn up and drive down the building's value if she didn't sell.

Whitefish Police Chief Bill Dial said Sherry Spencer did not file a complaint with police, though her son Richard Spencer accused Gersh of extortion in interviews and a video diary. No law enforcement agency has filed any charges relating to the dispute.

Are y'all ready for an old-fashioned Troll Storm?

Andrew Anglin, founder of DailyStormer.com

There was comment aplenty, though, on DailyStormer.com, which spews neo-Nazi propaganda.

Andrew Anglin, the site's founder, accused Gersh of extortion in a blog post. And he exhorted readers to send Gersh -- whom he also identified as Jewish -- enough messages to make a point.

"Let's hit 'em up," he posted. "Are y'all ready for an old-fashioned Troll Storm?"

He then told them: "(I)t's that time."

'These are not trolls. They are terrorists'

Tanya Gersh says harassing messages reached her in every corner of her life.

For three months, packed luggage sat on the floor of Gersh's home.

She debated fleeing, to escape what felt like an army of online hate coming after her.

"We were scared that they were going to show up," Gersh says. "It got worse and worse and worse and worse. They just kept perpetuating it."

Anyone who read Daily Stormer had access to all Gersh's information after Anglin posted it time and again. He put up photos and personal details: phone number, address, workplace and social media profiles -- including one used by her 12-year-old son. Each contained instructions to tell Gersh how they felt.

"Listen here you fucking Jew. You had better back off and leave Richard Spencer's mom alone, you dirty scumbag," one caller said on Gersh's voice mail. "You fucking Jew. You had better back off of Richard Spencer's mom. Everybody is watching you."

The Daily Stormer published more about Gersh and her "Jew agenda," once with a doctored photo showing her and her tween son on the gates of the Nazi concentration camp at Auschwitz.

A tweet was sent to Gersh showing her surrounded by gas, with the message: "Hickory dickory dock, the kike ran up the clock. The clock struck three and Internet Nazis trolls gassed the rest of them."

More messages referenced crematoriums and said she should have died in the Holocaust.

A tweet to her 12-year-old son had an image of an oven with the message: "PSsst kid there is a free X-box inside this oven."

Gersh thinks she will always be haunted by those images, and by the family talks she was forced to have. They had known the horrors of the Holocaust, but to them it had been something foreign and distant. No longer.

I'm going to make sure it doesn't happen to anybody else.

Tanya Gersh, Whitefish resident

She hangs her head, remembering the conversation.

"I never imagined that I would have to teach my children that they might be hated because they are Jewish," she says.

For Gersh, these threats were personal and real, not to be confused with generic if vile ramblings on an online comments board.

"These are not trolls. They are terrorists," Gersh says. "They are very harmful, they are very malicious and they are dangerous."

And Gersh decided to take a stand. She didn't know who had threatened her -- they hid behind withheld numbers and untraceable email addresses -- but knew who she believed had sent them into her life.

"Andrew Anglin has done this to so many people. I'm going to make sure it doesn't happen to anybody else," Gersh says defiantly.

Encouraged by the Southern Poverty Law Center, an Alabama-based organization that monitors hate crimes across the country, she decided to sue Anglin, accusing him of intentional infliction of emotional distress, invasion of privacy and violation of Montana's anti-intimidation statue.

News Courtesy: www.cnn.com