All This and Heaven Too:
A Study in Past Lives
by Carol Brierly M.B., Ch.B, B.S.D., M.I.A.C.T.

I was told recently that many of the Hitler youth who died in the last war have been reborn in England. One wonders if this could be true, and if so, it is equally possible that many of the victims of the holocaust could also have been reborn in other countries. Certainly some of the past lives that have been uncovered in my researches come from this area, but this is hardly surprising as so many people died in the last war.

Helena was eight years old. Her father, Frederic Steinberg, lived near Dusseldorf in a village called (?) Einsiedeln. The family consisted of Frederic, his wife Martina, his son Jonathan and Helena. Jonathan was two years younger than Helena. They lived in a big house which was divided between three families, but, said Helena proudly, “We had our own door”.

She had her own room also where she kept her dolls and toys. Her favourite toy was a small red doll with plaits and clothes which she could take off and put on again. Helena went to the village school, at first to Kindergarten and later to a big school. She says that it was happy and nice in the beginning but later the atmosphere changed. She couldn’t understand this. Everything around her was changing and she felt that she was not a part of this. At school she was picked on and taunted. “They don’t want us,” she said. For Helena was a Jew.

She knew that she was Jewish. Her mother said, “We’re not German, it’s not their fault.” But she was German and this was her home. She listened to her father and mother talking. There was, he said, a change in the country - a new man had come and he did not like Jews. There was talk of Nazis which she did not understand. Some of the boys of the village went away and came back in uniform. Some wore black shirts, others a darkish green uniform. At school things became worse and she stayed at home and so did the other Jewish children in the village. In the last three months of her life all Jews were made to wear the yellow star. People avoided them and crossed the street. “Not their fault,” said her mother.

“We’d heard about the lorries. People have been taken in the lorries and no one has seen them again. We’re not at school anymore. Most of the time we hide beneath the floor. Mum and Father try to reassure us, but we are afraid.

“The lorries came when we were out of the house, trying to get away across the fields. There was more than one lorry and the soldiers were very rough, with set faces, shouting and pushing us. We are treated like animals, herded into the street. My brother is taken away with the men, kicking and screaming. I am clinging to my Mum. I can feel the coarse hair of her woollen coat and I can smell the fear in us all.

The women and the girls are together, herded, bumping into each other. I am desperately holding on to her coat. They push is into the wagon. Cram us in together. There are others there already. I hold my mother’s coat. The last bit of security. She has her sleeve around me and tries to reassure me. I feel roughness on my face.

“It is late summer. It is getting dark. The wagon is not covered and we can see through the slats; the bigger people can see over the side. We are thrown against each other and the children are crying. There are so many packed in the wagon that there is nowhere to fall. We just bang against each other. Such a long journey. Perhaps two hours. I'm afraid, very afraid. We are all afraid. We know that we are going to die.

“The lorry drives through walls and gates of wire and we get out and are marched into a big brick building. We have nothing to eat. Some people have brought food and we share it. There are no beds. My mother is taken away. All the children are together. I feel not safe.”

How long are you in the camp?

“Not long, just a day.”

Do you know where your father has been taken?

“He and Jon are at Auschwitz, near Hanover.”

So, you are in this camp. Are you in the main camp or a subsidiary camp?

“A subsidiary one.”

Do you want to stay and see what happens?

“I think I know what happens. It’s very painful. It doesn’t last long.. I am with my mother now. They have taken our hats and coats. They tell us to undress and push us all through a small door. I am carried along in the crowd. I lose my Mum. All the children are screaming and crying. There is nowhere to go. There is blackness, stone walls and a vent in the wall. We huddle to the far end and hear the hiss and smell the slow sickly smell of the gas, gasping for breath, feeling enclosed, smothered. Then, suddenly, the sweetness of floating; my mother and I above it all, looking down and seeing some sleeping carcasses in the room below while we watch in peace above it all. We have come back to bright sunlight and brisk winds. A perfect day.

I asked Shirley, who was Helena, “What help will this be in your present life?” She said, “I think it may release fears and insecurities.” And knowing her as she is now, I am sure it has done so.

Sheila speaks:

“I see a little boy in Germany.” What’s his name?

(Laughs) “It’s a silly name, Hans… Horst. Hans Horst.”

Are you shy? How old are you?

“Five.”

Well, one is a bit shy at five. And what’s Hans Horst doing?

“Standing in the street, outside a shop, looking across a cobbled square and there’s a tower in front belonging to a church or a town hall. And I’m wearing shorts with braces on and a little shirt and brown shoes and grey socks. I have short, blond hair.”

What’s happening?

“It’s just the town. Nothing really is happening. It’s like a Sunday morning. There are some people. Some people marching.”

Do you get excited when people march?

No, I don’t like it.”

Where’s your mother?

(Brightening) “She’s in the house and she’s baking bread. She bakes round cobs. She’s a good cook.”

So it’s really rather a nice life, isn’t it? How about growing up a bit? Three or four years. Be ten years old.

Obediently Hans became older. Still resident in the same town of Bremen. He goes to school but has not yet joined any organisation. His father has joined the Brownshirts. He goes to rallies but Hans does not think he is happy doing this. He has not got a lot of choice. Both Hans and his mother feel uncomfortable about this. The parents never express their feelings in front of the children, but discuss matters privately. His three older bothers are in the Hitler Youth Organisation. Only two wear Brownshirts. Aged fifteen, Hans is still at school. Quite grown up, he rather fancies himself.

“I’ve still got blonde hair, and a cap, a blue cap.”

You must look very nice.

“Yes, I think so.” D’you sometimes look at yourself?

“Mm, yeah, well, you know…”

Yes, I DO know! Yes. Do you belong to the Hitler Youth? It’s better really to join, isn’t it, than to stay out? It only makes trouble for your parents.

“Yes, and for everybody really. It’s the only way to get on – it’s the only way to be able to go to the University, it’s the only was to do anything. It’s… it’s better to be on the inside. You can make changes on the inside. Can’t do anything from the outside. That’s what my parents say. I think they’ve lost sight of… I mean, life’s getting difficult, you know? There’s not a lot of food around. Everything is short, and things are really difficult.”

The war had not yet started. There was no money. Not a lot around, so Hans said. The feeling that Hitler is the person who would put everything right. He must be given the chance to do so.

Five years later, Hans is twenty.

“There’s a lot of rallies. A lot of marching. Lots of shouting, lots of speeches. Hitler… there’s a kind of… people have pulled together, if you understand. There’s a common cause, like we might be able to put the country back on its feet.”

What about the Jews?

(Huge sigh) “Well, what ABOUT the Jews? He says they’re bad. They keep themselves very separate. I don’t really think they’re bad, but there have to be scapegoats, you know. I think the Jews are scapegoats.”

So you don’t feel any hatred of them? Or do you?

“I don’t KNOW. I feel mixed up about it. You know – everybody is… people are HATING the Jews. It’s growing. It’s being whipped up. And people are beginning to act like frightened rabbits. It’s horrible, because… thinking that things are going to get better for Germany but then, I have a sense of, at what cost? There’s a lot of people think that way, a lot of them. They don’t say much about it though. It’s not safe to talk.”

(Moves on another five years.)

“I’m twenty-five now. It’s worse. It’s terrible. We thought that Hitler would put everything straight, you know, that the country would become great again, that everybody would be eating food, that there would be jobs for everyone, and there’s war! A world war! Everybody’s in it. I’m still in Bremen. Not for much longer. I’m part of it now, part of the whole thing. I’m in uniform now. Very smart, very orderly. I’m busy. I have work to do. I have records to keep…”

So life is not all that wonderful.

“No, I mean, we’re in this war, involved with the war.”

(Still later.)

Where are you now?

“In camp. Jew camp. I’m an officer - in charge near Bremen. I don’t like it. The war’s over.”

But you’re not happy?

“How could I be happy? I wasn’t wounded. I never fought. I was always an administrator.”

Hans died in 1950 in South America; a sad and embittered man - in his own eyes, a failure; in the eyes of the world - a criminal.

Sheila explained, “I’d been involved in growth work for many years. In 1992 I began to go through a massive ‘awakening’… I began to have spontaneous past life memories of a Nazi. I reckoned it was a past life memory as it fitted in so well with what I had recently been reading and it made sense; ever since a child I had a fascination for the war… if I saw Hitler on telly I would quake in my shoes and feel physically repulsed. I read a lot too about the death camps… as a very young child I had a couple of really vivid nightmares about escaping from the Nazis. Something happened a few years before when I was asked, if I’d been around in Nazi Germany, would I have been able to resist being one? My response was immediate, that yes, of course I would have been a Nazi.

“Even with this insight into the difficulty of remaining aloof I still felt very uncomfortable about the fact that I might have been a Nazi myself. One night in a group past life journey I found a Nazi in a dark cavern. The cavern was gruesome with Jews hanging by manacles from the walls. The Nazi had his back to me and I dreaded seeing his face, but I went up to him and he turned towards me and he was absolutely beautiful. He was like an angel. This was a real shock and I was beside myself with grief at having to leave him and return ‘home’.

“Carol suggested a regression to get to grips with this and having begun to see that a Nazi was not necessarily bad, I felt encouraged and was keen to investigate further.

“I was rather shocked at my meeting with the Nazi. I was deeply unhappy about the whole process and reluctant to speak about my experiences. It was all horribly painful and my Nazi was not a bit happy about his situation.

“Later, I began to wonder. I’d been an administrator in the camp, keeping the records of the entrances and exits of the inmates. I felt it was possible that I had quietly ‘fiddled’ a few of the records which gave people a chance to get out. I felt I wasn’t doing this especially deliberately. I just let a few mistakes happen and, I suppose, knew that others wouldn't pick them up."

This excerpt is from:
All This and Heaven Too: A Study in Past Lives
by Carol Brierly M.B., Ch.B, B.S.D., M.I.A.C.T.
Published 1996 by
The Greater World Christian Association
Greater World Spiritual Centre
3-5 Conway Street, London W1P 5HA, UK
Tel 0171 436 7555
ISBN 0 900413 44 1



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[Source: Isle of Avalon Website, Glastonbury, Somerset, England]