Goebbels family suicide

One of the most chilling things about Eva Braun biography is casual tone author uses when mentioning WW2 victims and atrocities as comparing with idolising tone when writing chapters about Braun's heroism, loyalty and dignity (?). While using Eva Braun as symbol of all German women who were ignorant of genocide, Lambert simultaneously tries to clear up the conscience of her own German mother who refused to talk about those subjects. I don't accept the version Lambert serves and although surely there were no Internet, TV and so much media connections like today, people must talk even if just between themselves - surely there were neighbours who disappeared and school friends who were "sent away".

One short but unforgettable sentence describes true fact about something that happened in the middle of WW2 - Nazis took around 90 Jewish orphans (aged up to 6 years!) and shoot them in the forest near Kiel. This butchering and slaughter of poor, scared little children who must have been crying and did not understand why this is happening to them is still haunting me and I can't help but imagining the picture - honest to God, I would give my own life if somehow I could be transported there and save them. I could strangle Nazi officials (together with Hitler and Eva Braun) with my own hands knowing this. But right after this short sentence, author goes on about idyllic life Eva Braun had on that darn hill there on Hitler's countryside property where wife's of Nazi officers sunbathed and had blonde haired children playing on the terrace. Did Eva Braun and all those women knew about Jewish orphans killed in forest? Did they cared as long as their little lives were protected?

One of those women was Magda Goebbels, wife of propaganda minister. By all accounts a beautiful, elegant woman, true Nazi-mother and jewel of Nazi parties (she presided over lavish parties where Eva Braun was not allowed, since she had to stay hidden in her rooms) she had six children with Goebbels and one grown up son from first marriage. Her stepfather used to be a wealthy Jew who was later killed in Buchenwald concentration camp and Magda was known to never help anybody who would ask for help, explaining her husband's antisemitism with ""The Führer wants it thus, and Joseph must obey". At the very end of the war, Goebbels family hid in Hitler's bunker and after Hitler and Eva committed suicide, Goebbels decided to rather kill themselves and their children than fall into hands of Soviet soldiers who were already entering Berlin and coming close every hour. There is a letter that Magda sent to her son Harald (who was prisoner in North Africa) where she explains herself in completely brain-washed, Nazi terms and asks him for understanding. Never for a second there is a sense of guilt or passing thought about horrors Nazi victims must have experienced, Magda only thinks about herself and her own loyalty to Hitler. She refused offers from others to have children smuggled out from Berln and rather chose suicide - or should we say murder - of her children with cyanide capsules that kids took not understanding what is happening, just like echo of those little Jewish orphans killed in a forest.

This is a photo of Goebbels family with older son from Magda's first marriage inserted in a picture.