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WHEREVER THEY MAY BE
© 1972, The
Beate Klarsfeld Foundation
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I could find a compartment where I might lie down and
be warmer than on the cold station platform. Needless to say, I laid my bundle
beside me. When I awoke, I saw a young man staring at me from the seat opposite
– a Norwegian who was going to Switzerland for two weeks of winter sports.
He insisted on talking to me in English, but I was so tired that I went right
back to sleep.
In Geneva he helped me off the train with my awkward
package, and was utterly astonished to find waiting for me on the platform the
several news photographers I had alerted before I left Berlin. Again encumbered
with my bundle, I climbed into a taxi that had an open top, and headed straight
for United Nations headquarters.
I have no idea who tipped them off,
but the security force at the United Nations had been warned of my visit and
had been instructed not to let me in. They had been expecting, however, a young
woman waving two flags, or perhaps a small army of young people, and so paid no
attention to arrivals by taxi. Hence, I got through the main entrance without
any trouble.
A number of members just happened to be in the courtyard.
Without a moment's hesitation, I unwrapped my two flags. A young man helped me
nail them to the wall near the entrance, and I began distributing the two
hundred pamphlets I had had printed in West Berlin.
The United Nations
security guards lost no time in tearing down first the West German, then the
Democratic Republic flag, but the photographers had had time to snap them. What
was left of my pamphlets was quickly confiscated, but I was not arrested.
In the fall of 1970, I went to London to protest Rudi Dutschke's
expulsion, which had been ordered by British Home Secretary Reginald Maulding.
I visited the offices of all the Fleet Street newspapers to argue that Dutschke
had been seriously wounded by a fanatic who still believed in Hitler: "The same
enemy who tried to invade England now has struck down Dutschke, the first
German in politics to be the victim of a postwar assassination attempt. You are
degrading yourselves by expelling him."
After reading the news stories,
former Prime Minister Harold Wilson promised to intervene. He did so, but to no
avail. Dutschke took the path to exile again and went to Denmark.
On
the evening of January 7, 1971, Mutualité Hall in Paris was full to
overflowing. Three weeks before, two of the five defendants in the Leningrad
trials had been sentenced to death. I had marched
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WHEREVER THEY MAY BE
© 1972, The
Beate Klarsfeld Foundation |
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Page 126 |
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