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I have just spoken with my friend and one-time colleague, born 1933. She remembers being on a balcony in Weimar at the beginning of the war, so a child, with her mother and a (female) cousin of her mother, who said that over there in the distance you can see Buchenwald, whereupon there was an exchange of funny glances between the two, which, remarkably, she seems to remember, altho as a child she could have no inkling of what Buchenwald was.

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Yes, some people know or had an inkling anyway. My family, from close to Vienna, like the vast majority of German and Austrian families, had no view of a concentration camp.

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Nov 15, 2023·edited Nov 15, 2023Liked by Elsa

Annecdote, but derived from responses from my late mother (1928-2014) to my questioning of her about that time, she had quite the experience back then, perhaps unique. She was born in Vienna in 1928, her parents divorced in 1929 and she and her mother (a Slav) returned to the family home in what is now Croatia. Her father was an Austrian veteran of WW1, a chemist by training and an early and enthusiastic member of the NSDAP. He was very well-connected throughout the war and seconded to the SS. He remarried and my mother's brother stayed with him in the Reich.

With the onset of war he invited my mother and grandmother to return to the 'Greater Reich', he would protect them, pay their bills and facilitate my mothers schooling. My grandmother was not a fan of the 'New Reich' and I suspect that her ex-husband's early enthusiasm for the NSDAP played a significant part in their divorce. Born a Slav, both she and my mother were "Untermenschen". However, she accepted the invitation; they moved to Lepzig and then to Vienna. My grandmother stubbornly refused to take Reich citizenship yet she and my mother lived comfortably simply because "everyone knew who her father was".

Despite the divorce and the separation of the siblings my mother remained close to her brother, he was a Flugzugfurher in the Luftwaffe, served on the Russian front and MIA in 1942. He was twenty years old.

My mother and grandmother had no papers, grandma was famously 'not a fan' of the status quo but due to her well-connected ex-husband they lived an almost unimpeded life in the heart of things in the Reich. So:

When I was old enough for the narrative I asked her "how could this happen?' You were there, throughout the war, people must have known, they must have known - how could this be allowed to happen? How was this possible? You must have known, someone must have known., someone must have said something."

She told me that no-one knew. Not even rumours of 'death camps' No-one said a word, no-one, nothing. Not a whisper. She told me that both in Leipzig and Vienna, they had Jewish neighbours, friends, who 'disappeared'. The agents of the government would turn up and then they were escorted away. Another empty flat. They were told that these people were being sent to be "resettled in the East" until the war was over and no-one said a word to the contrary, not a whisper of dissent or contradiction.

And please understand that my mother and grandmother were in quite the unique position: grandma was famously 'anti' it all, not signed-up, refused their papers. So they both occupied this 'liminal' status and would likely be trusted with 'counter-narrative' views - they knew everyone and everyone would talk to them, everyone. My mother attended a prestigious school, likely alongside the children of the zealots. Her brother was a serving Lufftwaffe officer. He would, of course, have had many friends and yet no-one said a word, not him, not his friends, no-one, not a whisper.

At the close of the war my mother and grandmother found themselves in what became the Russian Sector of Vienna. They spent the last days of the war in basements, they literally ate rats. They survived the initial onslaught of widespread rape and murder because the first Russian who layed hands on my mother got a mouthfull of angry "Russian" - they both were of course fluent in Serbo-Croat. So they went straight to headquarters - who were these people - they had no papers, they were fluent in Russian and German. They ended-up working for the Russians who had a city to administer and here were two bi-lingual and eminently employable women, the older of whom really didn't like the Nazis at all. They ate, they lived. One night in 1947 they escaped to the British sector.

However, my mother also told me this: In the weeks or months after the war and whilst employed by the Russian administration my mother, with a Russian officer as a boyfriend, they and everyone else who wanted to use their ration card were obliged to attend a cinema presentation of the ghastly films of the Aftermath: the piles of corpses, the bodies moved by bulldozers into pits, the emaciated survivors. You likely have also seen that footage.

She told me that the audience sat in stunned silence, you weren't allowed to leave. She told me that a few voices would mutter that 'this is propaganda' or suchlike. But if there were sounds at all it was mostly the sound of weeping. She told me that both men and women were in tears, audibly, as the films were played, that they were stunned, that they left the cinemas in silence, in tears, in disbelief, in shock. 

You will make of that anecdote what you will. 

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Thank you so much. This tells me so much, including the complicated person story. Another personal story. My mother had to put in papers when Austria was annexed, proving she had non-Jewish grandparents. It turned out that she was 100% Slav - which she's never given a thought to before.

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Nov 15, 2023Liked by Elsa

Mine also and likewise. God bless them all, those who survived, those who did not. God bless them all ~

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There's lots to research, beyond just the people you personally know. It does serve the losing side to claim ignorance of its atrocities. I don't claim to have the truth, but looking at historical footage and reading accounts by survivors has informed me. Many gentiles helped the desperate Jews, but had to keep that highly secret.

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Nov 15, 2023·edited Nov 15, 2023Liked by Elsa

Maybe knowledge of concentration camps was like knowledge of the recent pandemic! In other words, awareness as shades of grey, as in not black or white. For example.

1. The gullible were easily fooled by the propaganda!

2. It was easier to trust Hitler was planning a better Germany for Germans.

3. Those suspicious of Hitler were confused, powerless, or simply scared to ask questions or speak out.

4. Those who realised the truth were largely powerless and/or scared to speak out.

5. Those that spoke against the prevailing narrative were likely snubbed, censored, discredited, warned off, arrested, locked down, imprisoned or perhaps suffered some worse fate!

It easy now in hindsight to examine our recent pandemic and realise that most of those speaking against the narrative were correct. It's easy now to see how many lives could have been saved with early treatment. It's easy now to realise that it's highly likely the jabs have killed many more people than have been saved. But at the time many highly qualified people were fooled or see 1 to 5 above!

Of course in our recent pandemic the punishment for standing against the narrative was not a high risk of death or imprisonment, although some have been imprisoned for their strong well researched beliefs and some have been attacked or killed. Nevertheless the 2 situations and other historic events do show clearly that you can easily scare or fool most of the public simply by controlling the MSM narrative!

How many of those who believed the MSM narrative (that is since mostly been proven false), during the pandemic are now burying their heads in the sand, simply because they can not bring themselves to publicly admit they were wrong?

My question! How long will intelligent, wealthy, powerful groups within our society continue to support the type of society which makes a mockery of true freedom, fairness and democracy!

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It still goes on in both camps. The NYT continues in both, as well.

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EVERYONE PLEASE REMEMBER " POL POT " dear good God help us all return to goodness and truth

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Elsa, can you please restate this line, "for instance the overwhelming mainstream lies (narrative) about what Germans and Austrians knew during the war about what was happening to the Jews." Are you saying these people didn't know?

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Yes, they did not know. Hitler made sure they did not know. Right to the end the story was they were in safe-keeping. That I got from my father, who was a boy - early teen - in Vienna. How could people know - the concentration camps were far far away, off in Poland for the most part.

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I guessed your meaning. I've watched footage of Jewish people rounded up in ghettos, public squares, in train stations. Before that Jewish businesses were closed, students denied schooling, yellow stars on clothing. Of course the public knew. Also the camps were not always remote, but close enough to settlements that the odor from crematoriums was in the air. There are accounts by Jews returning to their towns who encountered disbelief from neighbors that they survived. Survived the concentration camps? Was the Final Solution secret?

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Read Night, I believe by Elie Wiesel - on the general disbelief even of Jews. And look around, at the current mass disbelief. The closest big city for me is Montreal. What happens at the train station. I have no idea. If something huge happened but was not reported or even denied by the media, why would I believe they media was lying. And yes, people were told Jews were being taken to camps because some were a danger. My father, a boy, heard this about the only Jewish family in his town. My father believed this. Now there is so much more evidence around, available to all - and most people don't believe.

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There were Jews who didn't believe the reports of other Jews who knew first-hand about the camps, unable to believe such a monstrous thing could happen. Elsa, I've read Weisel and many of the best memoirs by survivors these last few years, plus viewed many documentaries. I disagree with your opinion.

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Nov 15, 2023·edited Nov 15, 2023Author

Here is an answer from a friend. IT IS FACT, NOT OPINON:

My father was drafted into the German army in 1942 and fought until it was over.

He never heard of any camps and the lies in our history books compared to his and my

mothers tales, had so many contradictions that I spent my high school years

disputing the lies and being kicked out of history class constantly.

The winners print the stories and the losers suffer outrageous attacks.

In 1957 we had a rock thrown through our window with a message of Nazis go home.

Canadian tolerance wasn’t a thing back then for me or other Germans.

Sincerely,

Jurgen

FINAL WORD FROM ELSA: if Jurgen's father never heard of any camps, that means that, almost certainly, likewise around him none of the other soldiers heard of any camps. That goes with what my father (a few years younger, so he did not get into the army) told me: that he never heard of any camps, not from the news, not from anyone.

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What makes you believe that non-Jews would believe what many Jews could not believe? You seem to believe that.

Most, I am not giving opinion. I am giving facts - the fact of what my father knew, the fact also of what the people around him heard on the Nazi-controlled media, facts about what Nazi media was sending out (you can check into this), facts also about my lack of knowing about what is going on in the train station of the closest city.

You believe my father was lying. You are entitled to hold whatever opinions you like.

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One could of course start digging for the dog tags of the German soldiers at the sites of the Rhine meadows camps. Unfortunately this is forbidden. I wonder why.

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This has triggered me on multiple levels. Unfortunately, I can't afford the time to zoom into it and analyse it fully, so this is a quick gut instinct response.

James Bacque's account of the whole thing struck me as sincere raw truth-telling, especially in the light of the last few years of globalist tyranny - with all the lies and grotesque media censorship.

I've just watched Mark Felton's (short) video account that you posted a link to. The first red flag for me was his dismissal, within the first 2 minutes of the video, of James Bacque as a novelist not a historian. I 'smelt a rat' already in Felton's 'historical' framing narrative. He then smoothly, tidily, concisely wraps up many themes and threads, as always, into a convincing and persuasive alternative account of things, in tune with a conventional understanding of events, explaining away reduced deaths and casualties in the shattered wake of world war two. I'm very suspicious and not convinced, especially of tidy conventional war explanations. More red flags.

I first noticed Mark Felton's short videos over recent years, during the Convid-1984 tyranny, as a 'soothing' distraction. (Was I being cunningly manipulated by Youtube? Probably.) I found his videos fascinating. He's a good (his)story-teller (another red flag?) He produces interesting short videos of world war two topics which are captivating. A bit too 'Boy's Own' or 'Biggles Sees It Through' I suspect. Whilst I enjoyed his videos, there's a feeling of viewer-pampering going on. He's too organised and orderly as well - I suspect real history is far more untidy, uncomfortable and ugly. Manipulation and tidy air-brushing? More red flags. I want the bold ugly truth, not pampered entertainment.

His video of 2 million+ views versus Bacque's 4500 is very telling. Another red flag. How many truther's get millions of views in tyrannical totalitarian times? (I also still question a similar comparison of Dr Robert Malone versus Dr Mike Yeadon). Or, it may be that people simply welcome good distractions - and his videos are short and concise entertainment. Bread and circuses for the masses.

James Bacque's gritty truth-telling video is more persuasive to me in light of how Western powers have tried to manipulate and decimate humanity for at least 150 years, including two contrived world wars, the Spanish flu 'pandemic' and a secret war on civilian populations - now at peak power momentum. (Bill Cooper also comes to mind, who exposed much of this ongoing war on the civilian population).

I suspect that Mark Felton's account may be sincere but misled and misguided by the 'facts' and 'documentation' that he has covered. His credentials also flatter the 'normalcy narrative' of the Establishment - who likely pay him through corporate history entertainment channels. Many Big red flags! (Remember, normalcy only returns when everybody is jabbed).

I could go on with many other themes, such as shaming, as you mentioned, Elsa. The shaming deployed over recent years for Convid-1984 and the hideous psychological twisting of words and minds by the infamous lamestream media is a huge dark dystopian dynamic.

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The first video is blocked where I am - Germany - Because it "Contains National Socialist Symbology

Contains Incitement to Hatred"

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I suggest you use VPN - about 3 $ a month. You "locate" your computer to a country, like Canada, where you are allowed to watch the video. If you do that, let me know what you think of the video. I was impressed.

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Try Youtube

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The 2 Bitchute videos are not allowed to be viewed in UK (incites hate they say). Watched the YT one and I wonder why the bombing of infrastructure, bridges, railways, fuel shortages, manpower, lack of food and medicines, disease outbreaks, like Typhus, which they say happened in POW camps, did not also occur in the concentration camps? Finding enough food to eat and keep clean was hard on civilians like my mother who endured months of hardship after fleeing East Prussia late autumn, 1944, aged 16.

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I trust the James Bacque video far more than the Felton one. If Felton did not say what he says, he would lose funding. Also Other Losses interviews a number of survivors, and an American who was a guard at one of the camps. Strong corroboration. To see the videos, use VPN, where you "locate" your computer to another country. I believe that still works. It used to work perfectly, at any rate.

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Strangely, my subject in today's article was something similar and I used this article as a reference.

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when one's work is used in Hollywood and The History Channel, Netflix, National Geographic, then one's firmly embedded in The Narrative (a.k.a. biased in favour of the official story). better to look up research by villified historians like A.J.P. Taylor and David Irving: 'World War II was Churchill’s War, not Hitler’s war. Irving provides documented facts from which the reader cannot avoid this conclusion. Churchill got his war, for which he longed, because of the Versailles Treaty that stripped Germany of German territory and unjustly and irresponsibly imposed humiliation on Germany....' - https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2019/05/13/the-lies-about-world-war-ii/

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Churchill had an inflated sense because of family's history that he was destined to accomplish great things but never amounted to much before the war and made many bad decisions that had soldiers killed. Worse, he had an astronomical cost of living as he spent and spent and was practically bankrupt when a group of "you know who" got together and subsidized him throughout the war. Therefore he was able to continue living as he did. On several occasions he could have ended the war but "they" didn't want him to. How many people from all embattled countries including of course his own, needlessly died because he kept the war going ? Notice all the deluge of accolades given to him ever since as this selfless hard-working hero lying propaganda still going on ? How many books and movies devoted to that sell-out ? Another exemple of an individual pushed by medias to univeral heights of heroism when in reality he was an abject murderous traitor. As usual, the more one is pushed in the limelight by "them" the more that person is tainted and amoral and more.

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I believe we need an "explore all you like" zone.

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it's like a wild plant, inspired by your readers and growing (blossoming?) in all directions. a wonderful achievement!

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In other words, like me, you do not immediately believe Felton's contentions. And then, thank you for the references!!!

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thank you Elsa. by nature I'm not so good with numbers and as a consequence I often re-read what people try to say when they use (and abuse) numbers in their work. thus I once did sort-of a deep dive into one of those 'magic numbers' from WWll, the infamous 6 million J_ws who presumably perished. apparently there's a whole different layer of meaning hidden behind it, but it is not allowed (and in many countries even against the law) to openly, honestly discuss it. and once one has seen it, one can't un-see it. tip of the iceberg here - https://archive.org/details/old-newspapers-report-six-million-jews-1915-1938

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Terrible not to be allowed to explore. And then we have rage and hatred - not curiosity - like in some of the current anti-Israel protests - and that is allowed.

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Nov 13, 2023Liked by Elsa

Well said. With so much push and pull out there it is ever more important to be amongst a support group that can be like a home base or you might even call it a refuge

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Total agreement.

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RemovedNov 14, 2023Liked by Elsa
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One thing to pay attention to: the difference between opinion, often presented as fact ,and fact. My father had his experience - in other words, there are the FACTS of what the "news" reported - of what he heard on the radio during World War II, as someone living within the territory controlled by Hitler.

The elderly German couple you mention had the experience of having fled Germany - which means they likely fled BEFORE World War II. There were no concentration camps at that time. There was no mass killing of Jews. So in that case they would not have known - they would have had no FACTS, in other words - about what the "news" / propaganda was regarding the treatment of Jews during the latter years of World War II.

As for the negative attitude to Jews, that was found throughout the West. In Canada, even after the war, apartment buildings might post signs: no Jews and no dogs. My father remembered seeing signs such as these when my family emigrated to Canada.

In Germany (and other Nazi-controlled places like Austria during World War II), the discrimination against, and abusive treatment of, Jews was known and was "EXPLAINED" by the media as being the consequence of what the Jews were doing (dangerous Jewish Communist bankers, etc.).

Yes, there are echoes of this in the media presentation of the non-injected.

This is not mass psychosis - a dangerous term as it hides that this is an INDUCED hypnosis.

Yes, this is PROPAGANDA-INDUCED mass belief, mass hypnosis.

We see this over and over, as toward the Ukraine, BLM, the current Middle East conflict.

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I understand you believe this old man. You make that clear. You give no evidence, however, that he had the knowledge one would need to have to pronounce on what people knew in Germany and Austria during the war. But you clearly believe anyway, based on his being a good person.

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RE: He quite literally had relatives who knew and supported the Third Reich....

OF COURSE THERE WERE MILLIONS OF SUCH PEOPLE. There were 7 million members of the Nazi party. Note that even these people generally did not know of the Holocaust. In fact, until 1942 Hitler was trying to find a country to send the Jews.

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