Hey 3.5 readers.
Just wanted to share an interesting article I read in The Guardian:
“Joseph Goebbels’ 105-year-old secretary: ‘No one believes me now, but I knew nothing.’”
The article features an interview with Brunhilde Pomsel, who worked as a secretary for Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s Minister of Propaganda during World War II.
At 105, Pomsel is a living bit of history. The article describes her as unrepentant, that her job as a secretary was just like any other job, that “a combination of ignorance and awe” “shielded her from reality.”
She discusses how after the war she was jailed by the Russians for five years. Only then, she claims, did she learn about the holocaust.
The article further explains that she had a friendship with a Jewish woman but wasn’t able to find out what happened to her until she visited the Holocaust Memorial in 2005.
Interesting quote:
“Those people nowadays who say they would have stood up against the Nazis – I believe they are sincere in meaning that, but believe me, most of them wouldn’t have.”
I don’t know. Obviously, I can’t/don’t want to condone Nazi-ism or even working in the Nazi typing pool but I guess the fraulein might have a point. If that was where you lived and you needed a job and you weren’t exactly working for people who shared all the details…and if standing up to them meant you’d surely end up taking the big dirt nap…
I have no idea. I don’t want to pin a medal on her or anything but from a historical perspective the article is interesting and I imagine A German Life, the film in which she recalls her story, has a lot of history told by a rare person still alive who lived during that time period.
Bookshelf Battle 