By Carolyn Yeager

Fact is–it’s a deliberately confusing story with two distinct versions. Originally, he was too late to be assigned that number; in a newer rewrite, he was right on time. Which would you believe?

Above: Hungarian transport arriving at Auschwitz-Birkenau in 1944. Notice the casual atmosphere, the inmate-workers in striped clothing (not wielding clubs), the non-threatening guards spotted here and there (without snarling dogs), and the crematorium chimney in the distance — which is not belching smoke and fire.

Please continue reading at Elie Wiesel Cons The World

Zuerst magazine interviews Werner Bräuninger

December 2011

 Translated by Wilhelm Kriessmann

Biography of Werner Bräuninger

 Werner Bräuninger, born 1965, was a freelancing publicist and essayist. His book Odeonsplatz: The Rise of an Unknown (Universiras 2011) describing Hitler's life from 1890 to 1935 caused a sensation.  His book, Hitlers Adversaries in the NSDAP (Herbig 2004), about the imminent opposition in the National Socialist state, as well as his work about the spiritual roots of Count Claus von Stauffenberg within the circle around the poet Stefan George, were controversially discussed.

 Bräuninger’s publications have drawn attention from the FAZ, Die Welt and the renowned Zeitschrift fuer Geschichtswissenschaft (Science of History magazine). His website is www.marmorklippen.de

* * *

  Feldherrnhalle on Odeonsplatz, Munich

Zuerst:  Mr. Bräuninger, your new book Odeonsplatz might cause a small revolution in the German book market—a book about Hitler which has neither his name in the title nor his picture. Does it not really mean “Hitler sells?”

B:  It is, as you say, obviously a revolution because we do not live in normal times. From Norbert Knopp, we naturally could have expected a title like “Hitler`s German Shepherd Dogs.” My intention was a quite different one.

By Carolyn Yeager

10 “tricky” questions for  those who believe Elie Wiesel was in Auschwitz and Buchenwald camps and that he wrote Un di velt hot geshvign (And the world remained silent) based on that experience.

On the CODOH Forum Friedrich Paul Berg started a interesting thread on Dec. 30 with the title “Ten Trick Questions for “Holocaust Survivors.”1   Berg writes that his questions

are not really tricky at all. They are simply the kinds of normal and reasonable questions that defense attorneys should always ask prosecution witnesses. However, we have all been so thoroughly programmed with holocaust propaganda that hardly anyone ever dares to ask the right questions.

Berg is quite right and it gave me the idea to create my own questions for those (even some revisionists) who insist that Elie Wiesel has to be the author of the Yiddish book published in 1956 in Argentina, and that I am oh so wrong in trying to prove otherwise.

Above is an image of Elie Wiesel in 1954, age 25-going-on-26, when he says he wrote Un di velt … attached to some kind of entry card issued by the Yugoslavian embassy in Paris.

So here are the questions I would like those ’believers’ to answer. As Friedrich Paul Berg would say, they are normal and reasonable questions that attorneys should ask witnesses in court. Try your hand at answering them and send your answers to ewtattoo@codoh.com or write them in a comment below. (Serious answers only, please)

Beate Zschäpe turned herself in to Police on Nov. 8 after being named the 3rd member of an alleged neo-nazi terror cell in Zwickau, Germany.

Her lawyer, Public Defender Wolfgang Heer, filed a complaint against her detention with Germany's Federal Court of Justice on Tuesday, Dec. 27. In it, he said there were insufficient grounds for suspecting his client of having founded a terrorist organization or being a member of such an organization.

He stated there was no evidence of a firm organizational structure among Uwe Böhnhardt, Uwe Mundlos and Zschäpe and  currently no proof of a common will to organize, which is also a legal criterion for a terrorist organization. Furthermore, there is no evidence that Zschäpe was involved in creating the videos that were found on the scene of the burned house where the bodies of the two men were found.

In an interview with Der Spiegel on 12/27, Heer said, "Currently we have only seen about 500 pages (of case files), of which most are not significant in relation to the accusation of forming a terrorist organization. We have not even seen any of the files from the murder investigations."  He said said it was impossible to guarantee a fair trial under such conditions, and that Zschäpe's ability to defend herself was severely curtailed as a result.

By Carolyn Yeager

Why is Grandma Nisel not mentioned in Elie Wiesel’s Night?

According to Hilda Wiesel’s 1995 “Survivors of the Shoah” testimony, Grandmother Nisel (also  spelled Nissel) went with the family to Auschwitz.

According to Elie Wiesel’s 1995 memoir, All Rivers Run to the Sea1, Grandmother Nisel went with the family to Auschwitz.

But Grandma Nisel is not mentioned even once in Wiesel’s 1958-60 supposedly autobiographical Night.2

Did Wiesel simply forget about his grandmother only 10 years after the event and then remember her again in the 1990’s? Did he cut her out because he wanted to condense his book and she was peripheral to the storyline? Neither of these can be believed. In the first place, Wiesel makes it clear in All Rivers how important Grandma Nisel was to him and he writes affectionately about her. Secondly, by including his grandmother when he mentioned his mother and three sisters, he would not have added more than a few words to the deportation narrative, as we will see. Thirdly, Grandma Nisel, as a member of his family group that he says he lost at Auschwitz, could not be left out when writing about his family group.

And, in fact, he didn’t leave her out of his memoir, nor did Hilda leave her out of her testimony. But Night is another story (pun intended).  Continue reading at Elie Wiesel Cons The World

  "I have tried to do something that is really impossible: uniting the Jewish and German spirits."

By Carolyn Yeager

Jury decides that death is the answer.

On Friday, December 9, the jury deciding the fate of home-invasion rapist/murderer Joshua Komisarjevsky rejected mitigating circumstances presented to them by Defense Council and decided for death on all 6 counts.  This was hailed by the general public (as noted in immediate comments to newspaper stories1), while it was a disappointment to the state of Connecticut’s largest newspaper The Hartford Courant, some Connecticut lawmakers and Elie Wiesel.

Above: Dr. William Petit, sole survivor of the brutal 2007 home invasion by Stephen Hayes and Joshua Komisarjevsky that took the lives of his wife and two daughters, watches as his sister Johanna Chapman thanks the jurors for taking their time to come to the “right decision” in this painful and disturbing case. Chapman attended all the court sessions with her brother.

Above: The father of murdered Jennifer Petit, Rev. Richard Hawke. on left, embraces Christopher Komisarjevsky (right), the uncle of Joshua Komisarjevsky, outside the courtroom after the verdict was read. The elder Komisarjevsky, who strongly resembles Nikita Khrushchev in this profile pose, has written that his father, Theodore Komisarjevsky, was a renowned theater director from a famous Russian theatrical family. His mother was a leading figure in modern dance, a teacher and a writer. He is himself the former chief executive of the prominent public relations firm Burson-Marsteller. Joshua Komisarjevsky was adopted as an infant by Christopher’s brother Benedict; his mother unknown. Christopher K. was the only family member to attend the sentencing trial, during which time he made friends with the Hawke and Petit families.

On Oct. 26, 2010, Wiesel made a speech in Connecticut while the trial for Steven Hayes was in session, calling on the jury to not give the death penalty to either Hayes or Komisarjevsky for their brutal torture/killing spree. In his speech Wiesel repeated the words “Death is not the answer.”  I posted this article about it in October on Elie Wiesel Cons The World.  Continue reading at Elie Wiesel Cons The World.