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WHEREVER THEY MAY BE
© 1972, The
Beate Klarsfeld Foundation
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We stopped on the way to Waldshut, where the last
rally of the day was to be held, replenished our supply of elderly eggs, and
got a crate of damaged fruit. The town had been painstakingly decorated. The
country people were all in their best clothes, and the mayor and his colleagues
were in a dither. The Chancellor's arrival was to be the climax of the local
festival the – Chilibi – which was being celebrated that day.
We had already notified the young locals to meet in the hall at 8 P.M.
We went there separately and had to take seats where we could find them, for
the hall was almost full. The security force got nervous as soon as they saw
us, and the rally began slowly. Finally the mayor announced that the Chancellor
could make only a brief appearance because he was very tired after so full a
day.
The moment Kiesinger began speaking, about forty young people
stood up, raised their arms, and booed him. The embarrassed Kiesinger thought
he could wait out the storm, though he was surprised at the number of
agitators. The dumfounded public made no reaction; it was the first time
something like this had ever happened in the traditionally conservative
village.
Kiesinger tried a flash of humor, but it was lost in the
continuous booing and shouting. He stammered a few sentences that no one could
hear. Then, red-faced, he left the platform and sat down.
When the
rally broke up, the townspeople heckled me. "It's shameful," said one woman,
"to bring up a child a fanatic. The poor kid ought to be in bed at this hour.
He's dead tired."
Quite a crowd gathered around us.
"It's
strange," I said, "that during the war you didn't have any such pity for the
Jewish children they jammed into cattle cars before burning them up in
Auschwitz."
The woman did not answer, but moved away and disappeared.
The others slowly did likewise.
"Did anyone in Waldshut," I continued,
"protest against the crimes committed in Vietnam? Did anyone come to the
defense of children burned with napalm?"
One man raged at me: "Oh,
these Jews! It's a pity they weren't all exterminated."
The newspapers
gave a lot of coverage to incidents like these, which cropped up every day.
Publik wrote: "B.K. is giving Kiesinger nightmares. He breaks out in a
rash whenever he sees her or
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WHEREVER THEY MAY BE
© 1972, The
Beate Klarsfeld Foundation |
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Back |
Page 85 |
Forward |
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