TRANSCRIPT

(62 mins)

 

 

[00:01]

 

Brian: Welcome to the Brian Ruhe Show. It’s August. Sorry it’s November the 15th 2018. My guest is Monika Schaefer! This is her first public appearance after leaving prison in Germany so it’s a huge honor to have you on the show Monika! We want to hear your experience. Welcome to the show!

 

Monika: Thank you Brian. Oh my goodness! This is hard to believe, and it’s amazing that I’m talking to the world now! [laughing]

 

Brian: Yeah we should tell the audience in case they don’t know, in January the 3rd of this year you’re visiting Germany and you’re imprisoned. But where do you want to begin? Tell us the story Monika. Welcome home! Welcome home to Canada on behalf of everyone, welcome home!

 

Monika: Thank you! I guess where I want to start is to thank all the people who wrote to me and were active on my behalf, and actually on behalf of all free men and women, really. Because, as somebody has wisely has said:

 

“If one of us is imprisoned, then all of us are imprisoned.”

 

So it wasn’t just about me being in prison, because really why was I in prison for telling the truth? Political prisoner! So it’s not about me, it’s about all of us. But I really want to say thank you to all the people who wrote. I tried my best to write back. I don’t think I kept up all the time. And it also could very well be that some letters did not make it to their destination. I know that is the case from some specific people who, you know, told me certain letters didn’t get through. But anyway, I just wanted to first start with that appreciation. It was my lifeline while I was in prison. It really was!

 

I mean, the first few weeks I had absolutely no contact with anybody via a phone call, by a visitor, nothing! It’s like I went into a deep, dark, hole and I just had no idea, you know, when and how I was gonna get out of this deep, dark, hole! And so, actually my very first contact was from the Canadian Consulate in Munich, or I’ll say Munich for the English-speaking world, but that’s where I was, in prison for the last ten months. So they came, and I didn’t know who was coming. The guards just said:

 

“Okay, you have to come downstairs into this room where visitors come.”

 

And I didn’t think it was anybody in my family. I thought it might be a lawyer, but it wasn’t. It was the Consulate.

 

Brian: Oh!

 

Monika: Yeah I’ll just fast-forward to today.

 

Brian: Yeah.

 

Monika: Because I finally got my phone hooked up today. It took a long time, and [getting the] Internet, and that’s why we’re able to talk right now. I was still cut off even after I got home. I went to the library and used Wi-Fi there, and that kind of thing. But I felt very much cut off still.

 

But anyway, by total coincidence, this morning, the phone rang and I looked at this thing like it was, you know, a thing from outer space, because it was disconnected, and I didn’t even know it was connected yet., because they said a technician would come to my home today to connect it. Nobody had come yet. Suddenly the phone rings, fully expecting it was the phone company. No! It was Ottawa! It was the Global Affairs like the people who are connected with the embassies. In other words, the Canadian representative.

 

Brian: He called you today? Well, what were they calling you for?

 

Monika: Well, he called, he was the one who dealt with my “file” here in Canada, while the people in Munich were dealing with my “file” there. And they had tried a few times — obviously not gotten through, because my phone hadn’t been hooked up yet — but to close the file basically. To see if I’m home, safe and sound. And I thought that rather ironic and interesting that they were checking to see that I was safe and sound! , because Ottawa — in other words, the government, or somebody — forbade the German Consulate in Munich to attend trial. They would have liked to attend the trial. They were forbidden to attend the trial!

 

Brian: I know! Canada wasn’t helping you at all in Germany.

 

Monika: No.

 

Brian: Now they called to see if you’re okay!

 

Monika: Well not just were they not helping my case, they were obstructing! People who might go to see that I was getting a fair hearing. And, of course, I understand —they told me early on that they do not interfere in the laws of the land — I understand that. That’s not the job of the consulate. However, their job is to see that, first of all, I’m being treated well, and also to see that I’m getting a fair hearing. So anyway, that was kind of full circle. That all, you know, came today, to close the file on me. [laughing] they couldn’t wash their hands like a [words unclear]

Brian: Wow! They did a lot of work for you, didn’t they!

 

Monika: Yeah! Yeah, so I guess on that note of this being a very political trial, a political case, a political incarceration, and I just talked about Ottawa forbidding the consulate to attend. So, having been released just three weeks ago tomorrow, I thought it would be nice to spend a few weeks, or at least a few days, in Germany, after I was released, to visit with relatives. [adjusting her camera] it’s the other way? No like this?

 

Brian: Yeah I’m just saying. Yeah, a bit too much head-space.

 

Monika: Okay I went the other way. I understood the opposite there Brian, from your gestures.

 

Brian: Yeah. You still have a bit too much head-space.

 

Monika: No problem. Yeah I just understood the opposite, so I gave it more. Anyway, what happened is I had to flee. So I went from prisoner to fugitive! And it’s, because I got indications and signals from several directions. This was not just one person telling me:

 

“Gee Monika, we think it’s dangerous for you to stay in Germany.”

 

This was several sources, giving me the indication that it’s, time to get out. I had to flee. So I went from being ten months in a prison cell, where basically I have no power over decision-making for day-to-day life. Right? I mean, it’s not like I left my brain behind. Like I didn’t put my brain to sleep, I used all my faculties, and I worked hard, and I was very disciplined at staying active, mentally and physically, and every which way. I was really trying to stay alert and active. However when it comes to the day-to-day decision-making, you have no power, nothing! You know, they set the schedule and you’re basically at their disposal. They’ve got the key and they turn it when they feel like turning it. And you’re on a very, very strict tight schedule.

 

So I went from that for 10 months [chuckling] to suddenly having to flee! And being basically thrown out into the world and having to make my way home. And I’m telling you, it was a little bit more excitement than I cared for!

 

Brian: Yeah, “excitement” doesn’t sound like the word. It must have been quite disturbing. Were you isolated emotionally? , or how did it feel?

 

 

Monika: I would say that for several days, hour after hour, after hour, and through the night, I was travelling by trains to get out of Germany and not fly from Germany. That was the advice also. I was just on a really high level of tension. And I don’t know what you could call it. I guess probably there was adrenaline coursing through my body. But I don’t know adrenaline is just a really fast thing, you know, fight-or-flight. But it felt like I was in the flight mode for hour, after hour, after hour! It was, yeah, it was extreme, I have to say!

 

Brian: Was anybody with you, supporting you? Or were you alone traveling?

 

Monika: I was alone traveling. I started out with a family member, the very first leg. Then basically eight trains later I was at an airport in another country. And then I could buy a ticket like walking up to a bus ticket counter, except that this was to get on an airplane. And so I flew back to Canada.

 

So, I was very fortunate in that I had support, in terms of, I had money in my pocket. I mean, I had to have money in my pocket. I didn’t have any of, … The money stayed in a prison. Right now it’s still there, because I got released on a Friday night some they said they were sending you money to buy stamps and things like that.

 

Brian: Did you ever get that?

 

Monika: Oh yes! And I also want to say thank you so much to all the people who did send donations. All those 5, and 10, and 20 Euro donations. So they would put that into the account there. But there’s now still money there. Hopefully my lawyer will be able to get it out. I did send him a, you know, like a power of attorney thing, just to be able to do that. And there were foreign currencies amounts, as well. And checks which they would have just handed to me if I had been able to pick those up. But I had to flee! I did go back to the jail on the Saturday. That was kind of even, that was risky. My lawyer didn’t really want me to do that. I was released on Friday.

 

Brian: It sounds terrible! Like why is it risky? They released you from prison legally, what, why is it so risky? Or can’t you tell us?

 

Monika: Very good question! This brings us to the core of the German court system. The German so-called “justice” system. You cannot defend yourself in a German court of law, because if you defend yourself, by speaking about the very things that you are in prison for, well then you are doing a “new” crime! Like the thing that they call a “crime”, the politically incorrect speech, whatever it is that they threw you in there for like what they threw me in for, was just for speaking, peaceful expression. Never did violence. Never promoted violence. Never did anything like that! Just peacefully talking about how I see the events of World War Two. And they are very different from what we have been taught. So if we defend ourselves in court by talking about those things we do “new” crime in their eyes! Like do you see the, …

 

Brian: Wow! It’s Orwellian!

 

Monika: It’s bizarre! It is completely bizarre! So in the last word, so the prisoner, the defendant gets the last word, “das letzte Wort”. So I gave a quite a long speech, almost four hours. And I studiously actually avoided the taboo “H” subject [Holocaust/Holohoax], you know, [loud laughing] this taboo subject! But, the context — and we all know what happened to Sylvia Stolz — and she has been, …

 

Brian: You can tell the audience though, tell the audience what happened to Sylvia Stolz.

 

Monika: Yes. Well, she did spend time in jail. She was the attorney for Ernst Zundel, years ago in Germany. And did her job “too well”, and she was thrown into jail for almost three and a half years. So she spent three and a half years in jail and then barred from carrying on her profession, as a lawyer. And then sometime later, she was in Switzerland, gave a talk there. And it was on the subject of “freedom of speech”. And she didn’t say the “H” word, and I’m talking about the “Holocaust” word. She didn’t say it once in her whole speech, and yet when she came back to Germany she was charged for that speech!

 

See post:Sylvia Stolz – Lawyer Who Was Jailed for Presenting Evidence in the Zundel Trial

 

Again, this 130, the law, or the statute 130, paragraph 130, is the law that says — it doesn’t actually say the word “Holocaust” — and it’s very, very vague. You can hardly, you can’t really put your fingers on what that law says. It’s very vague, but it has to be. If you’re defending lies with laws, you have to be vague, so that you can interpret these things however they want to interpret these things. So you don’t really know what you’re allowed to say, or not allowed to say.

 

But anyway, so she was charged with, again this thing called the “Holocaust”, denying it, but really like it’s not even in the law, but just in the context of her speech, they’re saying. And sentenced to a year and a half prison time. She’s not in prison, it’s going through appeals process and that kind of thing.

 

Nevertheless, so this is how they have obviously interpreted my final speech, because the prosecutor was taking copious notes while I was talking. And she would have no reason to take copious notes while I was making my “last word”, if she didn’t have a reason for taking copious notes, and recharging me.

 

Brian: That sounds scary!

 

Monika: So it is bizarre! I mean, it’s like you go down this strange hole. I don’t know, people compare it to Alice in Wonderland, or something like that. But it is completely Kafkaesque, or Orwellian. I mean, the verdict comes first, then they do the trial. The sentence really comes first then they, … You know, the whole thing is just upside down! It’s inverted! The whole thing is inverted. So going back to, … Okay I went from prisoner to fugitive — I had to flee. And I did get indications from several sources. One was my lawyer. He was the first one to say:

 

“Look, don’t have a heart attack but you should leave as soon as possible.”

 

[15:01]

 

I did have to go back to get my violin. And I wasn’t going to leave without my violin. And that was still in the prison. So we did go back to the prison the next morning, on the Saturday, and all went well and smoothly there. I got the things out, but couldn’t get the money out, as I said. We’ll try to do that. But anyway, that’s not a big important thing right now. I had to leave, that was much more important. And I did get my violin, and that was really important! I was not going to go without that.

 

Brian: Yes people are wondering, what would have happened if like, … Frida was Alfred’s wife, I guess you were staying at your brother’s wife’s place. What would have happened if you stayed?

 

Monika: Well, we could have had a knock on the door, any time. They could have come on a Sunday afternoon, that doesn’t matter to them. So, I had to leave. And yeah, that was that.

 

Anyway, just speaking of everything being upside down and inverted, I have to say that after every single trial day, so the next day after trial days, when I would see my fellow prisoners, I would be jubilantly telling them how every day in court they are proving to us over and over again how the truth lies on our side! The truth and everything that is right, really. Like they are proving it over and over again to us how they are just defending lies! Because they’re behaving in bizarre ways in the court. And I can talk a little bit more about that in a moment.

 

But, what I found striking, was that at the very end, when the verdict was being given, … And there wasn’t all that much time after the my last word, though we had a recess for about 40 minutes, then were called back up into the into the courtroom to receive the verdict. And the verdict was 10 months for me, which I had already served, and 3 years to months for Alfred. So he’s going to be in there for a long time, plus he has more charges pending. So there’s a, …

 

Brian: Yeah, that’s so sad. That’s really heavy on our hearts, Alfred.

 

Monika: So, of course, it was mixed for me, you know, I’m being released right away, but, there’s my brother, he’s going in for a long run. So, of course, it was mixed for me. It was just extremely sad! But anyway, what the judge then said for the next 45 minutes, or so, he’s giving as his talk. I think it was maybe close to an hour. And he basically says that:

 

“Every single day we proved, over and over again, what haters we are!”

 

[loud laughing]

 

Brian: Oh! I’m sure he probably knows you’re telling the truth! Oh! It’s his job.

 

Monika: Well, I’d like to compare this judge, with the judge at the end of the Ernst Zündel trial in Germany. There was the Canadian, different court cases, but the one that happened in Germany which then subsequently landed him five more years in jail, after he had spent two years in solitary confinement in a Canadian jail.

 

But the judge at the end of that trial said something very interesting. And in this case, I would say that, yes, he knew exactly what the truth is. And the judge took a big chance saying this, really. I think it was quite a courageous thing to say, but he still did the wrong thing! But the judge said at that time said:

 

“You know, it doesn’t matter if the Holocaust happened, or not! It’s against the law in Germany to say it didn’t happen. And you broke the law!”

 

And five years in jail for breaking it, them, by the way.

 

 

Brian: Wow!

 

Monika: Ernst Zundel got the maximum, and he did not get let out, not even one day early, as my understanding of it. He sat to the very last day. And that’s very unusual. People get out usually on two-thirds, or whatever, especially if they’re well behaved. And my understanding of it was that Ernst Zündel was exemplary in his behavior in prison. The guards liked him. So anyway, that judge was quite different than this judge. This judge in our case basically just told us that:

 

“We proved every single day, what ‘haters’ we are!”

 

Which was the most bizarre thing I’ve ever heard! [loud laughing] And like I said, I was jubilantly telling my fellow prisoners, how:

 

“Every single day they’re proving how they’re just defending lies!”

 

They’re doing bizarre things. They’re not allowing evidence into court. They’re not allowing anything! Any of the request for proof, request for evidence, that we were submitting, that Alfred was submitting, or that I was submitting through my lawyer, or through his lawyer, or himself. They were just denying it! Just denying it, denying it!

 

“No! We don’t need that! We don’t need that!”

 

And they were also misinterpreting what was being requested, over and over, and over again. So it really was quite bizarre in that regard. [chuckling]

 

[20:29]

 

Brian: These German courts they don’t actually keep notes. Like in the Canadian courts there would be a stenographer writing everything down, but they don’t do that in German courts, right?

 

Monika: That was something that I absolutely, … It just took my breath away! I found that out on the first day. I’m looking around and I’m trying to figure out where’s the recording device. And I’m also looking around, where’s the stenographer? Where’s the person who’s busily typing away?

 

Because I’ve been in a Canadian courtroom and there’s an audio, they have a clock running when court is running, and you can see that there’s a recording being made. And they also have somebody typing away, typing away, typing away the whole time. And then they can compare the audio with the typed version. And then in that way afterwards, if you’re going in for an appeal, or whatever, you can get a transcript, or it’s just on the record! It’s on the record.

 

In the German court of law, it is not on the record! Nothing is being recorded! There’s no stenographer. It is very much like you’re going into a secret trial.

 

Also, I’ll tell you about that first day. You may, some of you, or some of the listeners, may have heard about this, because it was written about. There was a beautiful microphone system, so every everybody, like all the defendants lawyers, the prosecutors, the judges, everybody has a microphone in front of them. But you couldn’t turn them on! And people in the public gallery they were saying:

 

“We can’t hear it.”

 

Well the judge didn’t care about that. The judge would say:

 

“I don’t care!”

 

Like:

 

“Just shut up out there! We don’t want an interference from the public gallery.”

 

And this is going on, and I was protesting. I said:

 

“Why can’t we have the microphones? They’re here. Why can’t we have the system be turned on?”

 

Finally, I just stood up out of my chair and spoke. And this was kind of stepping out of line, because you kind of, you know, I just stood up and I just said:

 

“Look, is this a public, … Is this open to the public, or is it not open to the public? Is this trial a public thing, or not? , or is it a secret trial, behind closed doors? , because if nobody in the public can hear, then what my brother has been commenting about it being an ‘Inquisition’, or a ‘Muppet Show’, then he’s right! If they are there just for decoration, all the people in the public gallery, they can’t hear, and the judge does not care if they can hear, then it really is just for show! And this is just a show!”

 

And double that with the fact that nothing’s being recorded, nothing’s being written down, nothing’s being audio recorded, where are we? Like what is this? This is the darkest, darkest age that we’re in! This is in Germany, the country where Angela Merkel says:

 

“This is the freest country ever on German soil!”

 

We have the freest, you know, the best, whatever she has said, I don’t know the exact words. But that is what she says.

 

Brian: Well, free for migrants from Africa, I guess? Maybe that’s what she meant?

 

Monika: Yeah! I guess so. And then, just on this subject of sort of pseudo secret trial really, because all these things that I’m telling you about, makes you feel like it’s a secret trial. So on that subject, sometime later — it was a number of days later a different trial date — somebody stood up from the gallery — actually it was Sylvia Stolz — and said:

 

“You know, they have taken away our pens and paper.”

 

And so the judge said:

 

“Yeah. You can’t write along.”

 

You cannot, sort of write along with, taking notes, this would be okay, but you can’t write like, if people can do shorthand, or whatever. You can’t be doing that here. She says:

 

“Well they’ve taken away all of our pens and papers, so we can’t even take notes even on the breaks. We can’t even take notes from our memory on the breaks. What’s going on here?”

 

And the judge was just gonna go with that, but my lawyer stood up and made a complaint about this. And there’s a law to back him up, that you cannot do this. Finally, after a short recess, the judges — and there’s four judges, by the way, two of them are career judges, and two of them are lay judges, like here you would have jury, but there it’s not a jury. You call them “Schöffen”, and it’s lay judges. Just people from the public.

 

[25:11]

 

So anyway, these four judges they go and do their recess and they talk about these things, and then they come back and said:

 

“Okay, yep! You can have your paper and pen, but you cannot be, …”

 

I don’t know how you would say that. In German you say “mitschreiben”. So to write word-for-word, what’s going on. Well people can’t really keep up with that anyway. But yeah, so, …

 

Brian: I was getting notes from Lady Michele Renouf. She wasn’t there herself, but someone would come and relate the events and she would write it and have it published on the Barnes Review. So she was giving us a good sense of the pulse of the court, so we were really relying on her reports.

 

 

Monika: Yeah, that’s great., because after that, people could write and take notes again. But you see, that just shows you another element of how bizarre it was. You know, you’ve got the judges if they had their way, nobody could write, except for the press gallery. Now who’s in the front row of the public gallery, it’s the press people, and they ‘re taking notes. But are those our friends? Are they going to be reporting this with no bias? They’re with the mainstream media, so we kind of know what the mainstream media, how they report, it’s not exactly with no bias, right? [chuckling]

 

So that’s how things were going, but in the end, okay people were able to take notes and that’s what we, the world, had to count on that. But I know I had people write to me and say:

 

“Gee, it’s all gone quiet out there. We’re not hearing anything. What’s going on?”

 

And, I don’t know how easy it was for people to find these reports.

 

Brian: Yeah. I guess it was more of an email exchange to people that I know. I know that the National Post in Canada did a story. And the Ontario Civil Liberties Union spoke up for you and that was quoted in the National Post in Canada, but not much media coverage. Certainly not what it deserved.

 

Welcome home Monika! [Click image to enlarge]

 

Monika: Yeah, so anyway I’ll just check. I took some notes for myself to see what else I wanted to talk about. The fact that it was such a political case and the last word. So, you know, I had this notion that while I was in prison I was thinking, okay the local people in Jasper, how are they gonna respond to this? Surely, they must be thinking to themselves:

 

“Gee! I might not agree with what she’s saying, maybe she’s crazy, or whatever. I don’t agree with her, but put her in jail, just for that?”

 

I was thinking that this is how people would, you know, their thought process:

 

“Put her in jail just for speaking? Wow, maybe we should look into this?”

 

Like this is me thinking, [chuckling] maybe we should look into this and that they would discover alternative sources of information. And that they would discover that hey, you know:

 

“Gee! Maybe Monika is talking about some truth after all!”

 

But, when I first came back into this town, I’m telling you, I did not get that impression, not right off the bat, anyway. It was just like the hostility from a lot of the people here is such that I felt like:

 

“Hey! It’s gotten worse!”

 

They feel vindicated in their treatment, you know, the ritual defamation I was experiencing for a year and a half, before I went to Germany for this little visit — which got unceremoniously extended by the German government — it was meant to be just a visit over Christmas. And anyway, it’s like they were vindicated:

 

“Yeah look! She was thrown in jail! She must be a really bad person! We were right!” [chuckling]

 

Brian: Wasn’t ten months enough? You did 10 months, can’t they be nice to you now? They weren’t nice before.

 

Monika: Well, it’s funny. Some people talk about this thing of “forgiveness”, but I’m saying “forgiving” what? Like that notion itself, that’s still assuming that I did something wrong! I mean, some friends and acquaintances have said:

 

“Gee, why can’t people forgive you?”

 

Forgive me for what? You know, there’s still something wrong with that notion that I’m the one to be forgiven, when all I did is follow, … I reached different conclusions after I did some research about events, starting with 9/11, right? Waking up about what happened on 9/11. And these days, I think a lot of people are awake about what happened on 9/11. They might not know all the details of who did it, but they certainly are understanding that the official story is just a load of bunk!

 

 

See post:Know More News — Christopher Bollyn, The Man Who Solved 9/11 — TRANSCRIPT

 

[30:09]

 

And okay, so then I went further back and discovered that lying was not invented in 2001, right? Lying has been going on for a long time, and you kind of go down the rabbit hole. And many, many, many people have done that as well! Like, there is just so much good available research that has been done, that is available for us all to go down that road and learn for ourselves. The trouble is that we have this indoctrination that’s just been happening for so long, all our lives really, like it’s just a demoralization. People have become demoralized, and it’s very difficult for a lot of people to get out of that and to go down that road, and to open their eyes. And to admit that:

 

“Gee, all these things we’ve learned are wrong!”

 

Like that’s a really hard thing to go through. But once you go through it you never turn back. The truth will set you free! I really, truly believe that, and know it. Know it to be true, and I was saying that from prison, and I was writing it in some of the letters that I was writing. The truth will set you free! And I was saying that from behind bars. So I’m physically incarcerated, but I felt very, very free in all other aspects.

 

Brian: Yeah I was impressed with your letters. You sent me seven, and sometimes you’re so cheerful in your letters, you’re talking about you playing violin on Sunday, and everyone loved you, that I’m more miserable about you being in jail, than you were in jail! So you’re spirit is so strong Monika! You’re an inspiration to us all! And your letters, I really appreciated it.

 

Monika: Thank you Brian! I have to say, I mean, after the initial shock — and it really was a shock — but I felt like I was getting stronger with time, and getting more uplifted in my spirits as well. I did a lot of “spiritual” work, and, …

 

Brian: Yeah you wrote about that. We wrote back and forth about our sort of spiritual interpretation of life in that situation.

 

Monika: Yes. And also like, I didn’t waste my time in there. I used it well, I got into a — basically they give your daily structure with their schedule — but then I got into a good routine. The morning coffee water, the hot water would be delivered and I would always look forward to that, even though that was at six a.m. I was already up, usually by five. Maybe I’d already written a letter, so it felt good, then make myself a cup of coffee. I had a knitting project going at all times, so usually I’d relax and knit a bit. Then maybe write some more letters.

 

By 10 o’clock which is when “Hofgang” happened, the courtyard hour, I was really ready to get outside, do that. And I always went. And you would think that everybody would go, but that’s not the case, a lot of people didn’t always go outside, especially if there was inclement weather.

 

Brian: Tell us about that, like how big is the outside? What the prison looks like? I’m sure everyone’s wondering, like what was it’s like in jail? What’s it like in prison? How was the first week, and the first day, the second week? People want to know! What’s it like in prison, because most of us haven’t been there, you know? [Monika bursts out laughing]

 

 

Monika: Yeah well, the Women’s Prison at Städelheim, well they don’t actually call it the “Women’s Prison”, Städelheim, but everybody knows where Städelheim is. That’s the big “Men’s Prison”. It’s very, very old. But the Women’s prison is newer, so it is more modern. We had hot and cold running water in the cell, and that’s not the case for the men’s prison, like where Alfred is. There’s just cold water in a tiny sink. And, of course, Alfred, he at the beginning, only had access to the showers three times a week. But now it’s different, because he’s working, so he got moved into a different wing. And he’s working in the laundry, and then he does have daily access to the shower room, which is down the hall.

 

 

Brian: So what’s Alfred’s job in the laundry? I didn’t realize he’d be working in prison.

 

Monika: Yeah, so the laundry, all the prisoners clothes, like I wasn’t wearing my own clothing in prison. Sorry I wasn’t wearing my own clothing, so there are prison clothes. So you dabbed these laundry exchanges, you know, you go like certain days of the week you’d exchange your laundry for fresh laundry. And so it was being washed. And then you, I wore a skirt. You could either have jeans, or a skirt in the women’s, anyway. [chuckling]

 

And I preferred the skirt, because it always fit. The first eight weeks, or so, I would always have the pants and never could get a fitting pair. They’d either be too tight, or too loose, or too baggy, or the zipper was broken and I mean, it was just a “Gong Show” with the pants. So I went with the skirt, that was much better and more comfortable, and then, …

 

Brian: You are saying in defense of Alfred. He’s retired from IBM, he could do a better job than laundry, [words unclear] for them. [chuckling]

 

[35:31]

 

Monika: Well, in prison, I mean, there’s various jobs. I mean, maybe he’ll change his job over time, but he’s really happy to be working, because it gets him out of the cell more and in contact with people. Really that’s the main thing, otherwise he’s locked in his cell for most hours a day. And they had pretty severe conditions over at the men’s [prison]. In the woman’s also. I mean, we had a lot of hours of being locked in ourselves, basically 21 hours a day. So there’s the one hour that’s the courtyard hour, and then there’s an hour and a half in the afternoon where the cell doors were opened, just to the hallway.

 

You’d have access to the hallway. And down the hall there would be the shower room, there’d be a small kitchen. There was a small group like a room, you know, where you could hang out with others. But you didn’t have a lot of time, because there was always a lot to do in that hour and a half. Also at the beginning of that hour and a half they would come around with the food and you had to wait until that trolley came around, and sometimes they’d be 20 minutes late. So that cuts into your hour and a half. And so you get the food that would last you till the next day at lunch again. And the hot meal came just after the courtyard hour at eleven, or eleven fifteen. So, you know, that sounds early for the main meal a day, but for me, who was getting up at five in the morning that was perfect. The hot meal at midday, basically.

 

Brian: So your social time is out in the courtyard, where you’d meet and hang out with people. In the courtyard did you’d exercise? Was that a social time as well? What sort of exercise would you do?

 

Monika: Yeah. Well I definitely was trying to get as much exercise as I could. So when I first arrived it was winter, not a lot of people were going outside. And it’s basically people who do go outside, go round and round. And I don’t know if you ever heard about the dream that I had before my last night in freedom. I had a quite a profound dream. Which I didn’t realize until three days later what it was that I saw in my dream. But what I saw in my dream was the courtyard.

 

Brian: Wow! Tell the audience about that! Precognitive dream before any of this happened.

 

Monika: Yeah. It just completely floored me! I bolted upright! After my first full day in prison, the next morning, I was sort of in that half awake half asleep state, and I bolted upright in bed and realized what that dream had been representing., because in that dream, which I had had on the night of January 2nd to the 3rd, which was, you know, three days earlier, I was just walking in a circle, round and round, round and round, very, very slowly. All these people with their heads kind of slightly bowed. And there wasn’t anything around, no buildings. It was sort of like a desert. But I just thought it was very strange dream. In fact, it was so vivid that I talked about it at the breakfast table, and then, like I say, …

 

So my first day I got arrested I wasn’t in that jail yet, I was in a police cell. And the next day I go before a judge for a hearing, to see if they can keep me. I’ve read that in some emails that they thought, okay, well you’re only allowed to be kept for 24 hours. This is true, but then they can determine that they can keep you. So that’s when they determined, oh I’m a flight risk! And so they kept me.

 

I’m a flight risk, because I’m a Canadian, and I could just go home, right? Even though, well anyway, I’ll talk about that later. There were other hearings later on in March, and May again, to see if I could go and stay at my brother’s place. Give up my passport and make a daily trip to the police station. Say:

 

“Hi! I’m Monika. Here I am, and I’m not running away. I want to attend this trial.”

 

But that never worked out for me, either. And in both of those cases they predetermined the outcome too, it was just a formality to have these hearings. Just, because they have to do it. They have to go through these actions, or go through the motions. But they had reasons for keeping me which were absolutely bizarre. And I can tell you about that in a moment.

 

But I did want to just kind of finish. You had asked me about the courtyard hour. So in winter that’s how it was. Not very many people went out. I always went out and I tried to get exercise. I also exercised regularly in my cell and I kind of figured out a lot of exercises that you could do on the spot, because it’s a very small cell. In the beginning I was with people in a cell, and then, after about five weeks, I had a single, like my own cell. Anyway, so that’s how the days went.

 

[40:33]

 

 

Brian: But I was gonna, just to finish the dream. That’s amazing. So you didn’t realize the meaning of the dream until you actually saw the courtyard, and then you wake up the next morning and bang you realize:

 

“Oh the dream!”

 

 

And you put it all together?

 

Monika: Yes!

 

Brian: Tell us about the dream, because that’s that shows psychic precognition on your point. And that in itself is pretty interesting, pretty significant.

 

Monika: Yeah, it was like how does one explain that other than God? How does one explain that? It’s like, I had a dream in which I’m seeing something that’s gonna happen. It hasn’t happened yet. I don’t know how one explains that.

 

Brian: Well, it’s called “precognition”, that’s like your psychic. Your psychic! You know, precognition, yeah.

 

Monika: It’s a mystery. And I mean, I think that’s wonderful that there are mysteries in life. There was more to the dream, …

 

Brian: Tell us all about the dream. I want to get all, because this is really psychic! Talk about the dream and any other details.

 

Monika: In the dream, [laughing] so the size of the loop that people were walking was exactly the same size as the courtyard. You know, in sort of this image, it wasn’t tiny, it wasn’t huge, it was exactly the size of the courtyard. And half of the people were black and half of the people were White, in this dream. So again this is just a very strange dream that I told about at the breakfast table. Oh yeah, and then I was saying that the first night that I was arrested I was in a police cell. Then the second night I was in the jail. So that would have been the Thursday. Friday was my very first full day.

 

So that’s my first day that I experienced the “Hofgang”, the courtyard hour. And quite a few people who were outside that day — I didn’t realize that, but comparing it to what came later I realized that for some reason quite a few people were outside that day — but everybody’s just kind of walking in that circle.

 

That changed in the summer when the weather was nice. Everybody went out and hung out and just sat around in sunny spots and would socialize. But in the winter, if you went out you had to move otherwise you’d get cold. So people were just walking round and round. And I still didn’t clue into it. But Friday night, go to bed. Saturday would, just bolt upright in my bed and realize, that’s the dream! I saw the dream!

 

But this thing about half black, half White, that represents something different. When I got it got into the jail cell, we were half black, half White. So there were two that were from Africa that we couldn’t communicate, couldn’t speak the same language. And then myself and another European woman. And so that’s how I would interpret the half-black, half-white. It was how it was in the cell.

 

And on that note that how it was in the cells. Like you would think that when you go to jail in a particular country, and if you can speak the language of that country, well then you can communicate with everybody in the jail. Well not so in a German jail. Most people in the jail were foreign language speakers!

 

Brian: Oh! Sounds pretty lonely then?

 

Monika: Most, I would say, more than half. Like I didn’t do a formal study, [chuckling] but first of all there were lots of other European languages, but there were many people from Africa, as well. Some of them spoke English so I was fortunate and that I can speak English so I could communicate with quite a few of the people. If they didn’t speak German they might speak English. I could communicate in French, too, if need be, but there weren’t very many French-speaking people in the jail. So Spanish, and I used to speak Spanish.

 

It’s very, very rusty now. But I could do a little bit of communicating in Spanish. So, with these different languages that I have some degree of skill in, at least. German fluent, English fluent, French semi fluent, Spanish a little bit [chuckling] I could communicate with a lot of people. But, you know, if you’re in a cell and there’s people nattering away, nattering, nattering, nattering in another language, and you’re not understanding them, …

 

Brian: Oh, yeah.

 

[44:52]

 

Monika: Absolutely exhausting! It is emotionally draining and exhausting! Because it would be much better just to have complete quiet than to have this nattering going on in language that you cannot understand. It makes it very, very difficult, actually. And this is a problem for many, many, many people in the prison cells.

 

Now, there were single cells, and there were these group cells. The group cells are for four. In that prison four, sometimes we were five. They put an extra cot in, because they were very crowded. Once I got into my own cell, that was better. It was also shocking, because I went from being like over stimulated, we had “television wars”! I wanted peace and quiet, but they had the television on all the time, and it was most of the time in another language.

 

Brian: Oh man!

 

Monika: And it was very exhausting too. So I chose, when I did get into my single cell, not to have the television. Like there’s a screen in every cell, but it only gets turned on if you pay for it. Well, I never did that. I didn’t want it. So, …

 

Brian: You have to pay for it? These prisoners, some of them probably not a lot of money, have to pay to watch TV?

 

Monika: Oh my goodness, it was expensive too! It was 20 euros per month. That’s like $30 a month for it. And everybody, just about everybody, had it. Like just about everybody paid for it. And there’s so much absolute garbage on TV, and it’s just such a mind, I don’t know what you would call it. Just an indoctrination tool! So yeah, that’s the reality. But yeah, it was very expensive and a lot of people, you’re right, they don’t have money. Yeah.

 

But I wanted to talk, I just touched on these hearings that I went to in March and then again in May to see if I could get out of jail, to await the trial. Like not to go home. Like I realized, okay they want to put me through a trial. They’re charging me, … They haven’t even charged me at this point. At the next hearing in March. I didn’t know about it till the day before I went there. I wasn’t psyching up for getting out, at all. But all my friends there were psyching me up!

 

“Oh! You’ll get out for sure! Like if you go for this hearing in front of the judge, usually you get out!”

 

And then the judge herself — and this particular hearing took place over in the Men’s prison, it’s a large prison, so they’ve got facilities there and sometimes a judge comes there — so this woman judge, she was very, very friendly and listening to my lawyer, very attentively. And the guard who accompanied me was witnessing all this, and my lawyer was saying:

 

“She can go every day to the police station.”

 

And the judge was saying:

 

“Well, she wouldn’t even have to go every day. She could go every third day, or three times a week would be good enough.”

 

This kind of thing. So she was talking in a way that all indications were I would get out, with my passport being taken, and all that stuff, so that I couldn’t escape from Germany. And the guard also thought I was getting out. She witnessed all this, and on the way back, … But we weren’t gonna get the answer till the next day. The judge said:

 

“Okay, just the only thing I have to do is I have to talk with the prosecutor, and that’s it. But tomorrow you’ll get the fact, and, see you later.”

 

The guard on the way back, she said:

 

“Oh Monika, you can spend one more one more night in jail with us. It’ll be okay!”

 

Like, she was very friendly, very warm, and figured for sure I was leaving the next day. She said:

 

“You know, it’s not so bad. You can spend one more night with us.”

 

Sort of like that. Like a friend almost. Well, the next day I didn’t hear anything. And I had gotten so psyched from everybody giving me this encouragement, and I started to dream about, walking through the forest, and having beautiful conversations, and maybe a glass of wine. And being with my relatives, with my brother. And just I just started to psych myself up for that. But I didn’t hear anything the next day. And then second day after that, I just knew in my gut, I knew this isn’t gonna work out. I’m not getting out. And that was probably my hardest day in the whole time.

 

Brian: Oh, yeah! I remember you wrote that in your letter, how they would do this. It almost seemed like they’re deliberately doing this as a psychological game.

 

[49:38]

 

Monika: So, and by Saturday — like that took place on Wednesday, Thursday, I was supposed to get the answer Friday was that really rough day for me. I kind of knew in my gut — still didn’t get the official answer though. Didn’t hear anything. Saturday, I started putting my pictures back on my pin board, you know, like I had packed everything up — just in case I get out. Because you can’t go back in your cell if you get out. If they release you, they pack up your stuff. So I thought, I’ll pack up the pictures and stuff off of my wall and get everything organized, really organized! Like everything was in bags just ready to go.

 

Anyway, Saturday I put the pictures back on the wall. Sunday it’s a weekend, you don’t, you know, nothing happens. I think I got the answer on the Monday, or the Tuesday. And, of course, it was that I stay in jail.

 

Brian: Ohhh, …

 

Monika: Let me tell you, well I already knew that! So by that time I wasn’t surprised and I’d already gotten over it, right? But Friday was that really rough day. Probably the hardest day in the whole time. But one of the reasons they gave — and this is why I said, they make their decision first and then they go through the motions, whatever they have to do, go through the motions — but one of their reasons for keeping me in jail was that the “active letter exchanges” that I had with Gerhard Ittner.

 

See post: Alfred Schaefer – A Dissident Speaking Out – Gerhard Ittner — TRANSCRIPT

 

Gerhard Ittner, he was a political prisoner as well. At that time he was not, he was free. And I had not had a single letter from him, nor had I written him. I didn’t have an address for him. There was not one letter going back and forth between him and me at that point! And this was written into the reasons for keeping me in jail! And for some reason this would, …

 

Brian: Maybe, because he wrote to you? You didn’t write him, he wrote to you?

 

Monika: Brian! Not a single letter exchanged from him to me, nor from me to him!

 

Brian: Oh, he didn’t even write to you, then?

 

Monika: No! They made it up! They made it up out of thin air! And him being a political type, that they don’t like, and they didn’t want this communication going on, … I guess what they’re doing is they’re being pre-emptive! They don’t want me to start a dialogue with him, which is what I might do, if I get out. I don’t know! They just made it up out of thin air! That I had this, like “aktiver Briefwechsel” which means, “active letter exchange”. So that’s more than one letter, that’s two, or three, or five, or ten letters, back and forth!

 

But there was not one! Not one! It was zero! [laughing] So, that was among “other reasons”. There you go, you get the verdict first. Isn’t that how it was in Alice in Wonderland? I don’t know, I don’t really remember that story, but that’s what, …

 

Brian: They just lie to you, accuse you of these letters. There were no letters. They just lie.

 

Monika: They just made it up! Made it out of thin air! And it’s written in black and White.

 

Okay, the next time that I went before a judge — this time I had to go right into the downtown Munich, to the courthouse to see the judge there — happens to be the same judge I believe that was then presiding over our whole trial. And again, another hearing to see if I could get out to await the trial and just be at my brother’s place. And at that time my brother was not in jail, either. I mean, this would have been really nice for me to just be able to hang out there with them. Go swimming in the lake, and [chuckling] go for a walk in the forest. These were things that I was craving!

 

Anyway, in that case the hearing went by quite quickly, asked a few questions and I answered as best could. A few days later I get the answer. And it was — this time I knew anyway that I wasn’t getting out. It was, I knew this time, I didn’t get myself psyched up to get out at all! I knew that they’ve already made their mind up that I’m staying in, but they have to go through the motions, because a certain amount of time goes by, they have to stay within their deadlines of how much time you can hold a prisoner, just hold the prisoner while nothing is going on.

 

And by this time charges had been laid, finally. That took about four months, actually. Didn’t get the charges till late April. So this was May I believe, this hearing. And in this case the reasons were almost longer than the whole hearing took. I would guess the hearing took ten minutes, and it took me way longer than ten minutes to read page after page of reasons! And in these reasons, there were things that, okay, it’s “unknown”, this is “unknown”, that is “unknown”, that is “unknown”. I thought:

 

“Oh! They could have asked me that! Why didn’t they ask me that?”

 

They just didn’t ask me! For example:

 

“It is unknown if the Schaefer siblings grew up together, or not.”

 

[laughing loudly]

 

So!

 

Brian: That’s nuts! You grew up in Alberta together, right?

 

[54:54]

 

Monika: No. In hindsight, I could see why they might question it, because Alfred currently lives in Germany, and I currently live in Canada, so maybe they didn’t even grow up together. Also, by coincidence, Alfred happens to have been born in Germany. Now my parents had already emigrated to Canada, there was an older brother who was born first, then they went back for six months to Germany. And during that time, Alfred was born there. But they were already landed immigrants and applying for citizenship and soon became Canadian citizens. Then they went back to Canada and had a few more children, and I was the fourth of five.

 

So okay, so they see that Alfred was born in Germany and they see Monika’s born in Canada, Alfred lives in Germany, Monika lives in Canada. I can see in hindsight that, okay maybe they have these doubts.

 

Brian: They could have asked you!

 

Monika: They could have asked. For me, it wouldn’t have occurred to me to volunteer this information, because it never occurred to me to doubt it, because that’s how it was! We grew up as a family together. Why would it occur to me to have to volunteer that information to the judge if he didn’t ask!

 

Brian: Of course!

 

Monika: So that’s just one example. And I can’t recall right now what all the other reasons were, but that one just stands out and, …

 

Brian: That’s infuriating! It’s insulting! Gee, I wonder if they don’t even ask! Just insulting to not ask that. And then to write that down as a reason.

 

Monika: But again, it just proves that they have their verdict before they go through the process. And that was with these hearings. That was only to decide if I stay in jail, or not, while we’re waiting for the trial. But the same thing in the trial. The whole trial, and like I said at the very beginning of this chat were having, everything’s inverted! So my perception of it was that they are proving every day, and maybe for another talk, another day, we could talk about what am I talking about, how they are proving every day that truth lies on our side and not on their side.

 

Brian: Yeah, we can do a series of videos on this. It’s such a big experience. This is the first video and I’d love to have you back, you know,

 

Monika: Yeah. But then at the end the judge portrays it exactly the opposite! And says:

 

“How we proved, over and over, every single day in court, what haters we were!”

 

[laughing] Like, what a concept! What a concept!

 

Brian: It’s turned upside down! It’s an American occupied government of Germany. Just turns reality on its head!

 

Monika: Yeah. An American occupied, but we all know who controls America! I mean, I think was it Netanyahu who said: “who controls America, …”, or was it Sharon, I can’t remember which.

 

Brian: Yeah, I think it’s Sharon says:

 

“People say, this, or that, but we control America!”

Monika: It was Sharon, exactly! Yeah that’s right. So, I don’t know how long we’ve been talking Brian?

 

Brian: Yes, almost an hour. Maybe we should wind down you must be getting tired here? I mean, but it’s a real honor for me to give me your first public appearance on my Brian Ruhe Show, about your experience. Because we’ve all been waiting for your story. So I really appreciate you being on the show Monika!

 

Monika: Thank you so much! I was just gonna check my notes to see if there was something else urgent for today. But I don’t really think so, and I mean, then we can do more talks, right? And I’m happy to talk to other people as well and [get] connected back in the world of internet and phone now. I lost you. I lost you Brian?

 

Brian: Yes, sorry I had my mic turned off for background noise. You’re gonna be more in demand now. You were doing a lot of videos before you’re arrested. Now that you’ve had the experience you’re gonna be quite popular, now. I just want to thank people in the chat here. There’s hundreds of comments here in the chat. People are really happy to have you back! Sorry, I didn’t have a chance to read the chat, we’re talking so much. But yeah, hundreds of comments here.

 

Monika: Maybe I can read them afterwards, or something.

 

Brian: Oh yeah, it’ll still be here on YouTube, right there on the Brian Ruhe channel. And you can read them all.

 

Monika: Well again, I just want to say with how much I appreciate all the letters that I received, and correspondence. And also all the actions that people took to try to highlight what was going on, because again like I said at the very beginning it’s about all of us. It’s about our freedom! It’s about understanding the truth! This is a call for, basically if we don’t understand the truth of what’s going on, then we are becoming enslaved!

 

Brian: Yeah.

 

Monika: Becoming destroyed! This is like an emergency call to people, to wake up.

 

[60:00]

 

The people listening here, probably most of them are, but that we have to carry on this work for all of us to remain free! And one could talk about that, how we already very much enslaved. But the fact that we’re talking right now, right here, … I always still retain hope, and actually I’d like to just make this one more comment about what does give me hope.

 

See post: Sorry Mom, I was wrong about the Holocaust — TRANSCRIPT

 

It’s the fact that they are so scared of somebody like me! Oh my goodness! Like why are they so worried about something that I said in a video apologizing to my deceased mother, to my deceased parents, for having been wrong about how I used to think about these events of World War Two? And I had blamed them for not stopping all those horrors, and then I apologized later in life, just two years ago, and why are they so worried about that? Shows me that we do still have the ability to turn this around! We have to for our survival! Right? But if they had it all sewn up, and if they already got this all, they wouldn’t care about me, or you. They wouldn’t care!

 

Brian: Yeah! And now your voice is even more out there. I remember when you were released I was surprised. I thought they’re gonna to keep you for like a year. I was crying out of the phone, she’s released! I’d thought you would be in for a year!

 

Monika: Well, I’m very happy to be back home that’s for sure. I’m very sad that my brother’s in jail. But he himself, I can assure you, he maintains his positive and good spirits, I know that. One of the things about court, all the court days, it was just so nice to see him. That was really when I could see him. And we had a little bit of opportunity to talk as we were wandering up and down the stairways, and whatnot, to get to the courtroom and back. Anyway, we should probably wrap it up.

 

Brian: Well, I have to say:

 

“Welcome home Monika! Great to have you back!”

 

Monika: Thank you so much for doing this Brian. And I know we worked hard to get this connection. It took us over an hour to get this Google hangout connected. We did finally succeed!

 

Brian: Good. Talk again soon, thanks!

 

Monika: Thank you Brian. Bye-bye.

 

[62:43]

 

 

 

END

Brian Ruhe — Monika Schaefer’s First Public Appearance Since Imprisonment in Germany! — TRANSCRIPT