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WHEREVER THEY MAY BE
© 1972, The
Beate Klarsfeld Foundation
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the canteen, they allowed me to notify my family that
I had been arrested. I called Serge at his office. He was not there. My
mother-in-law answered at our apartment:
"Serge is coming home to
change his clothes. He's all excited. He told me: 'I knew she'd do it.' He's
going to take a plane this afternoon and he'll be in Berlin tonight. What
should he bring you in case you have to stay in jail?"
I knew that
Serge would come. Nothing bad could happen to me once he was there.
I
also telephoned Horst Mahler's office. He was not in, but I left a message.
When he arrived, the policemen left us alone together. Mahler's first words
were whispered, for he was afraid the room was bugged: "It's marvelous! What
you did is absolutely marvelous!"
I found that thereafter my act got
wholehearted support from the Extra-Parliamentary Opposition. I was no longer
alone.
For about twenty minutes Mahler and I discussed the main lines
of my defense. But we did not suspect that my trial would be held that very
day.
Meanwhile a tribunal was being assembled in desperate haste. The
young prosecutor was made to ride with me in the automobile that took us to the
police court in the Tiergarten. After a half-hour's wait, a bailiff came to
tell me that in view of the late hour – it was almost 5 P.M. – my
hearing had been postponed to the following day. Two policemen took me to a
cell. I left my personal belongings at the desk. A policewoman tossed me a
nightgown and some sheets. The barred door opened, then shut. I was in jail.
I lowered the hard plank from the wall to which it was hinged and made
up a bed on it. Then I lay down and tried to put my thoughts in order and
relive every moment of the day. Suddenly the barred door opened.
"Come
right away. Your lawyer is waiting for you."
Mahler was indignant:
"They're going to try you at once. There are several hundred young people
outside. Plainclothesmen are on most of the benches in the courtroom. Only
about a dozen of the reporters who came here could get in."
I was
scared that at any moment my skirt would fall down, for I had had to leave my
belt at the police desk. Shivering with nervousness, I threw my coat over my
shoulders.
I was shut into a small cage. Neelsen, the prosecutor, was
carrying on in front of me. I guessed him to be no more than thirty -
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WHEREVER THEY MAY BE
© 1972, The
Beate Klarsfeld Foundation |
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Page 58 |
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