3,146 words

Monika Schaefer
Sorry Mom, I Was Wrong About the Holocaust
The Barnes Review, 2022

This is a book that probably needs no introduction; but as it is scheduled to be released in a German-language translation by publishing house Der Schelm in the fall/winter of 2024, I thought it was appropriate to write a review. (Der Schelm, by the way, has also published German versions of most of Savitri Devi’s books, complete with photographs of the persons and places she wrote about.)

First off, may I rant a bit about the fact that nobody appears to know or care about commas anymore? It’s “Sorry, Mom”, Ms. Schaefer! It always drives me nuts. Correct use of language is important, and I tell you this as someone who makes plenty of mistakes in English. And before anyone says it: Honestly, truly, “Language evolves”—an obvious tautology—is the very worst, most facile defense of both slang and poor language skills. It’s like asking “Animal life evolves, right, so why worry about the deleterious effects of chemical and radioactive mutigens [sic] in the environment?” Courtesy of Caitlín R. Kiernan, whatever you might think of her/him/it.

Monika Schaefer, or Schäfer, as the family name was originally spelled and will appear as such on the cover of the German translation, is the daughter of German immigrants to Canada. On June 17, 2016, she put out a video with the same title as her book. In it, she apologized to her now dead mother for having believed in the Holocaust narrative and as a result holding her parents and in extension her German heritage responsible. Two days later, she also put out a German-language version of that video. Within days, viewers had uploaded subtitled versions in Spanish, French and Russian. There were, from a legal point of view, two problems with those videos: Monika Schaefer explicitly stated that “these things did not happen”, and she filmed and uploaded the video in Germany, from the home of her brother Alfred (he is named as “producer” in the credits) who had re-migrated to the family’s country of origin and was already quite vocal about questionable narratives like those surrounding 9/11. Holocaust denial is a criminal offense in Germany, and as such, Monika and Alfred Schaefer had just broken the law. (Although, as Monika Schaefer points out later in the book, the law never actually specifies this. It is implied but never defined in any way.)

For now, she was able to return to her hometown of Jasper. On July 25, 2016, she penned a letter to “close family”, as she calls it in her book; most likely her other siblings. The full text of the letter is reprinted in the book, as are many other exchanges by letter and e-mail as well as newspaper articles over the course of the unfolding story. By that point, the video had gone viral, and media outlets had already published “hit pieces”. Monika Schaefer wrote the letter to explain her reasons for making the video, but also to warn her family of the inevitable fallout and as a kind of – well, life insurance is the wrong word, but to make it clear that she was not suicidal in case something unfortunate were to happen to her. I also suspect that she wanted to alert those family members who were not yet aware of the video’s existence. Monika Schaefer has a strong missionary streak, as will become clear in later chapters.

Practically overnight, she had become an unperson in her town. Her attempts to publish an explanatory letter in the local newspaper and her sending it to now former friends were met with predictable results.

Monika Schaefer then describes her parents’ backgrounds, her own childhood and growing activism for environmental issues in her teenage years, which eventually led to her joining Canada’s Green Party at its inception and even becoming a candidate for her riding, i.e. electoral district.

Things changed in 2011 when her brother Alfred began to send e-mails about some inconvenient facts about 9/11. It was the first step in Monika Schaefer’s “red-pilling” or wisening-up, and in the classic behavior of enthusiastic new converts she set out to spread the word. Her most prominent victim was Elizabeth May, the leader of the Green Party of Canada, and I’m not being facetious here. Monika Schaefer herself states that she “tried to educate” May, that she “continued to send her materials, both in person and by registered mail.”

This is where I have to insert my thoughts on this kind of approach. I can’t seem to find it (am I blind? hallucinating? misremembering?) but not so long ago there was an essay here on C-C regarding the very thing: How do we best get people on board, via the “soft” or the “hard” approach? I am definitely an advocate for the former option, for the simple reason that the hard approach never worked on me. You hit people over the head with all those “materials”, you talk about the Holohoax and the WEF and Bill Gates and the JQ, and all you achieve is turning them off. Because it sounds plain crazy.

I have this one reader of my blog that I have corresponded with over the years. She isn’t a bad sort, but she, like Monika Schaefer, has no sense of proportion. From 2020 on, to this very day, all she ever talks and writes about is COVID. I embed a video about some other topic that just mentions COVID in passing, and that is all she hears. She sent me links and files and more links and more texts with exclamation marks five times a week. I asked her repeatedly to remove me from her mailing list, which she ignored. Finally, I told her very bluntly to leave me alone with her Corona spam. Predictably, she then felt insulted by my rudeness, never reflecting on her own behavior. Because she was on a mission, you see.

This is partly what I saw unfolding in Monika Schaefer’s story. She goes into the Paul Estrin affair during the 2014 Gaza War (remember that one?), mentioning Estrin’s “article full of distortions and falsehoods” that he published on the GPC’s website. As a result, Schaefer wrote a letter to Elizabeth May, “demanding”, as she puts it, “his resignation”. Well, she did much more than demand Estrin’s resignation. Her letter, which is reprinted in full in the book, goes all out with “cult-like jargon”, as Jim Goad once called it. Estrin, the Zionist shill who will destroy the Green Party from within. Infiltration. The Zionist end-game. New World Order. They have taken control of most of our major institutions. They control the secret societies. We need to free ourselves from the shackles of Zionism. The Talmud teachings.

Look, objectively speaking, it’s true, but this is no way to address anyone who is not yet red-pilled. Small wonder that the Green Party refused Monika Schaefer’s reapplication for candidacy in her district. In 2015, Schaefer left the GPC.

Monika Schaefer then returns to the aftermath of her video, her ostracism by the community of Jasper, letters by acquaintances, friends, family, by strangers, letters to the newspapers, e-mails, social media comments. It is ugly, with the occasional glimpse of light.

In December 2017, she traveled to Germany, to spend Christmas with her family members there. During that time, she learned that the trial of Sylvia Stolz was to take place on January 3, 2018, and Monika Schaefer, calling Stolz her hero, decided to attend. During a recess, Schaefer was approached by “a tall and slender blonde woman” and subsequently arrested. Luckily, Sylvia Stolz’s lawyer was around and immediately offered his services.

We then get introduced to prison life in Germany, which I found really interesting. I have overheard regular “customers” – petty criminals, probably drug-related for the most part – on the train and subway several times, and I’ve always learned something new. (Did you know that “insurance fraud” is code for sexual offense?) Monika Schaefer’s depiction is humorous but also very telling: none of her initial cellmates were Germans. There is more:

Prisoners are treated like dirt when they first arrive. Many of the wardens degrade, demean, humiliate, and dehumanize the prisoners. They show who is boss and who wields the keys and the power. Fine. That is how it is. But I felt I was receiving an extra dose of this treatment, as I was the “neo-Nazi” on the block.

Maybe, maybe not. But this seems to be timeless behavior. For example, since it relates to the topic, these kinds of descriptions are exactly what we get from former concentration camp inmates – and no, I’m less talking about Jews and more about Catholics. It needs to be remembered that the latter formed a large part of the prisoners; Dachau, for example, was known as the “priests’ camp” because all imprisoned Catholic priests were literally concentrated there.

Prison authorities have all kinds of rules, but they do not bother to explain these rules. If we do not follow these unknown rules, they humiliate us down into the gutter. Oh, how the wardens could bark. They were our overlords, and we were the low scum of the Earth, as they shouted and roared at the slightest infraction of one of their thousand rules.

These were early days. I quickly learned the ropes, what to do, how to behave, where to be and when, how to hold your metal platter for the food trolley as it was rolled to your cell door, which way to present your dirty laundry for the laundry exchange, on and on and on. Barks and shouts were easily elicited, just for blinking the wrong way. I truly felt I had landed in a nuthouse.

I quickly learned that trying to discuss anything with logic or reason, or to ask why something was the way it was in prison, was like asking a mad dog why he was barking.

Monika Schaefer beat the system with politeness, showing respect but also demanding it. Over time, the wardens began to treat her better. Her positive outlook on life certainly helped.

An interesting revelation is that, despite the inevitable racial tensions, prison authorities deliberately made black and white inmates share a cell because,

When they put all Blacks [sic] together in cells, they would have really bad brawls, almost killing each other. They broke things, made a big mess, and the place would end up completely trashed and filthy. It had not worked out, so they put Blacks with Whites [sic] so it would be calmer and cleaner. The light went on for me: We were basically their babysitters.

Things get downright bizarre at the trial that finally takes place almost half a year after Monika Schaefer’s arrest. Now, we only have her account, not how things looked from the other side. There were times when I sympathized with the judges, especially faced with Alfred Schaefer’s behavior, which was bizarre in its own right. Of course, if you suspect the verdict is already in, no matter what you say, you might as well go wild. I’d be more about dignity and optics, but that’s certainly a matter of personal taste. However, as a consequence of his behavior, Alfred Schaefer was arrested and put into prison during the trial; he had been allowed to stay at his home up to that point.

At any rate, the chief judge clearly appeared to be biased against the defendants. The Schaefers’ lawyers tried to recuse him several times, but “the panel of three judges who were never seen but were tasked with deciding whether or not the trial needed to be restarted” rejected the applications every time. Several members of the public, among them Sylvia Stolz, were arrested during the trial. Something that I learned from Monika Schaefer’s book is that apparently there are no recordings or stenographers’ transcripts during a trial in Germany. I don’t know if that is generally the case; I’ve never looked into it. If it is, I consider it a criminal oversight. How on earth do you prove anything in case of a mistrial? However, in contrast to Monika Schaefer, I do not suspect some sinister plot behind it. “Much later, it occurred to me that perhaps the reason there is no transcript and nor recording of the trial is because the court is an illegitimate court.”

She then goes into the theory that the Federal Republic of Germany is not a legitimate state – a theory that I do not subscribe to, by the way. In the words of Devon Stack: “Not everything is a conspiracy.” If you’ve ever had dealings with the German administration on any level, you know that they sure love their forms but they are not very practical about it. That stuff has to be filed. Who likes to file anything? And modern devilry like, you know, digital recorders? Why, we first have to apply for permission to buy some. It’s tax money, after all. Then we have to find someone who knows how to operate these things. And afterwards, what are we going to do with the recording? Where do we keep it? Nah, better not open that can of worms. There is a reason why the German bureaucracy became a cliché long ago.

Monika Schaefer makes mention of Ernst Zündel’s trial, giving us the (alleged) quote by his judge, “It does not matter whether the holocaust happened or not, its denial is punishable, and that is all that counts in court.” Well, from a legal point of view, this is correct. A judge has to pass judgment according to the law. If the law is faulty, that is the lawmakers’ business. Of course, a judge always has some leeway there. You know, like the one who refused to sentence a Syrian rapist to prison because he claimed not to have known that rape was illegal in Germany. Much could be said about that, but it would have been the perfect opportunity to teach him some good old German wisdom: “Unwissenheit schützt vor Strafe nicht” – ignorance does not protect you from punishment. But it’s 2024, and most judges are taught neither wisdom nor anything good, old, and German.

Monika Schaefer then gives a summary of her “Last Word”, which is in essence what her book has been all about up to this point. Sadly, she includes the popular but questionable ”Sefton Delmer” quote to Friedrich Grimm in 1945: “Atrocity propaganda is how we won the war…” A simple search could have told her that a) we have only Grimm’s word that this conversation ever took place, which would not automatically disqualify it, but b) the person he talked to was not Sefton Delmer but an unnamed Frenchman.

The trial ends with Monika Schaefer’s release, having served her time already, and her brother Alfred being sentenced to several years in prison. After a series of warnings, Monika Schaefer hastily left the country and arrived safely back in Canada. Her book concludes with a summary of the things that don’t add up concerning the official Holocaust narrative and a call to whites to be proud of their culture and their people.

Monika Schaefer’s book, I suspect, is addressed not so much to those “in the know” but to her family and friends who have not yet been red-pilled. That is why there so much focus on why neither the 9/11 nor the Holocaust narrative make sense, on what the press reported about Monika Schaefer and what was really going on behind the scenes, on how slanted the justice system is. Not a bad strategy, if she can get them to actually read it.

This review might come across as somewhat critical, but that is not my intention. From what I have seen and heard of Monika Schaefer on the internet, she seems a very likeable, well-spoken and reasonable woman. It’s more the optics I’m concerned with. I won’t go into the “Holocaust – yes or no?” debate, but leave you with two historical quotes by Savitri Devi. I am aware that she changed her view quite a bit later in life. But this is what she wrote at the time:

We do not deny that there were gas chambers in some of the German concentration camps, under the Third Reich. They might have been an unpleasant necessity, and an unaesthetic one; instruments of execution are never pleasant or pretty. Yet, they were a necessity. But first, the people who met their death in them were all sentenced for some serious offence for which that particular penalty was foreseen; they were not “innocent” people, guilty only of being Jews (otherwise there would not have been a Jew left in the whole country in 1945, and goodness knows how many thousands there still were). Second, … an execution in a gas chamber took not more than fifteen or at the most twenty minutes, and sometimes less. And the condemned were unconscious long before that time was over. The information was given me by a comrade who had himself acquired it from repeated personal experience. (Gold in the Furnace)

We can safely assume that said comrade did not come by his repeated personal experience from inside a gas chamber…

And Hans F. talked about the convoys of Jews that he had himself accompanied to the place of fate. And he described the activity of the crematoria, and the ‘great bright-red flames’ that would spring out of the main chimney as new fuel fed the furnace below. [I say it every time the narrative of “flames out of the chimney” comes up: If flames come out of your chimney, there is something terribly wrong. A chimney is meant to draw out the smoke, not to be on fire!] “You would have loved to see those beautiful great red flames!” said he, addressing me.

“Here is at last one who does not need more than half an hour to know me thoroughly,” thought I; “people of the same sort feel one another, I suppose.” And recalling in a flash the thousands of fools that had dared to tell me that I “surely would have ceased being a National Socialist” had I “only seen Auschwitz,” I felt: “Gosh, what a relief to be among one’s own people!” …

“By the way,” said I, “it seems that, in their desire to show tourists how ‘awful’ we were, the Democrats have built gas chambers in former camps in which there were none, and added new ones in such places as Auschwitz… Is it true?”

“It is just like them, anyhow!” laughed Hans F. “But let them do so! It will spare us the trouble – and the expense – of new installations, next time…” [Careful with those wooden doors, Herr F.!]

However, he suddenly became serious, nay sombre. “We burnt Jews (although not as many as we should have),” said he; “but they were dead – all of them, already dead; those who deny this, lie. […]” (Pilgrimage)