German-Canadian Holocaust denier and former Green Party of Canada candidate Monika Schaefer was arrested on Jan. 3 in Munich, reportedly while attending the trial of a lawyer accused of Holocaust denial.

According to an open letter written by her brother Alfred Schaefer – a German-Canadian who was also charged last year in Germany for criminal incitement due to his anti-Semitic and Holocaust-denying activities – his sister was attending the trial of Holocaust-denier Sylvia Stolz, when she was arrested during a recess in the proceedings.

“Now they have moved Monika Schaefer to the high security prison in Munich and will keep her there indefinitely. Monika is accused of making an apology to her own dear mother. The title of the video was, Sorry Mom, I was wrong about the Holocaust,” read the letter.

In the 2016 YouTube video, Monika Schaefer – a musician from Jasper, Alta. – referred to the Holocaust as “the biggest and most pernicious and persistent lie in all of history.”

She said that while there were detention camps where prisoners were kept against their will, “these were work camps – the prisoners of the camps were being kept as healthy and as well-fed as was possible in those terrible war years.”

READ: WHY I’M NO LONGER PRESIDENT OF THE GREEN PARTY OF CANADA

Schaefer also claimed that gas chambers were only used to “de-louse” prisoners, not murder them.

Schafer, who was a federal Green party candidate for the Alberta riding of Yellowhead in 2006, 2008 and 2011, first gained notoriety for her public anti-Semitic statements in 2014, in response to former Green party president Paul Estrin’s pro-Israel blog post, titled, “Why Gaza makes me sad.”

He wrote in The CJN at the time that his “dissenting view” in defence of Israel’s position in the 2014 Gaza war led to him being “drummed out” of his position. He said he received many “blatantly anti-Semitic” letters and comments in response to his article, but none worse than Schaefer’s.

“It is abundantly clear to me that he is a Zionist shill,” Schaefer wrote about Estrin. She said that Jews “have taken control of most of our major institutions, including the media, the banks and the government,” and that Judaism is a “supremacist cult.… Remember who did 9/11 – the same criminal state which is now destroying Gaza.”

Aidan Fishman, interim national director of B’nai Brith Canada’s League for Human Rights, said that although Schaefer was visiting from Canada, she may have been on the radar of German police because B’nai Brith had filed complaints against her with German officials.

We will continue to work, even across borders, to ensure that racism and bigotry find no haven.

– Michael Mostyn

“The way we first learned of her arrest is that these two far-right German blogs written by people who are supportive of Schaefer started reporting that she’d been arrested under Germany’s rather strict anti-incitement laws,” Fishman said.

B’nai Brith Canada CEO Michael Mostyn commended German officials for making the arrest.

“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,” he said.

Fishman added that he’s pleased that Schaefer will face justice in Germany.

“It’s ironic that sometimes it’s easier to have Canadians who engage in anti-Semitic incitement charged in other countries when they visit, than to have them charged in Canada,” said Fishman. “We’ve consistently called on Canadian authorities to take a strong line when it comes to propagation of hatred against identifiable groups and we hope to see authorities, both in Germany and in Canada, deploying this charge whenever necessary.”

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