Jasper Holocaust denier arrested in Germany
A German-Canadian woman who believes the Holocaust is “the biggest ... lie in all of history” was arrested Wednesday in Munich, according to reports.
Monika Schaefer, a music teacher and failed Green party candidate, was arrested while attending the trial of Sylvia Stolz, a lawyer on trial for Holocaust denial, according to a post on the German blog deutsches-Maedchen.com Friday.
The Jasper violinist was reportedly arrested during a recess of the trial. Holocaust denial is a criminal offence in Germany.
The B’nai Brith Canada has applauded Germany for the arrest.
“German officials should be commended for taking action against Holocaust denial,” CEO Michael Mostyn said in a news release. “Anti-Semitism has no place in Canadian politics or Canadian universities, and we will continue to work, even across borders, to ensure that racism and bigotry find no haven in Canada.”
Schaefer stood for election provincially and federally as a Green party candidate but was denounced by the party in 2016 after posting a YouTube video where she called the Holocaust “the biggest and most pernicious and persistent lie in all of history.”
While she admitted in the video, entitled, “Sorry Mom, I was wrong about the Holocaust,” detention camps existed, she claims they were work camps where the prisoners were kept “as healthy and as well-fed as was possible.”
“And how much sense does it make, by the way, to have a hospital in a death camp,” she added.
She then claimed the camps had no gas chambers and that gas was only used to delouse the prisoners’ clothing to protect against typhus.
She also referred to it as the “six-million lie,” in reference to the Jews killed by the Germans during the Holocaust.
Schaefer was in Munich visiting her brother, Alfred Schaefer, who helped produce the video.