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WHEREVER THEY MAY BE
© 1972, The
Beate Klarsfeld Foundation
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reopen the case when the criminal was caught. But he
never was caught, and so his file was never added to.
If he were to be
brought to trial in Germany, the German magistrate would ask the French court
for the file. Whereas in France a man who had been the head of a criminal
organization would have to prove his innocence, in Germany the courts would
simply examine the file for evidence of his personal participation. If they
found none, the case would be closed for lack of grounds for prosecution.
If there were evidence based on the testimony of Germans interrogated
during their imprisonment in France, the German court would call them as
witnesses. Rückerl believes that 99 percent of the time – and that's
being optimistic – they would retract their testimony because they would
be in their own country. Furthermore, they themselves played a part in those
crimes, and as witnesses for the prosecution they would be obliged to testify
in open court. Germans, they would have to publicly accuse other Germans. If
there were French witnesses, they too would have to be interrogated. But many
of the witnesses, both French and German, have died since the end of the war.
So even if the inquiry did result in a trial, cases in which the evidence was
based solely on human testimony would end in an acquittal.
Because the
French examining magistrates cannot be expected to resume their inquests –
and they can officially transmit to their German counterparts only the file
that contains the sentence by default – and because new accusations can
only be transmitted "for information," only the worst bureaucratic criminals
who signed plenty of directives of a criminal nature can be tried with any
chance of receiving a verdict consistent with justice. If they can be tried for
the deportation of Jews from France, as they never have been, their trial will
have a great impact on history and on justice. It will provide for an
understanding of a police system that produced the deportation and death of
over a hundred thousand French Jews and will clearly establish who was
responsible for it.
The sentencing of those at the top who were
responsible for the Nazi crimes committed in France would prevent the
rehabilitation in Germany of the thousand criminals who so brutally repressed
French resistance. Among them are almost all of the gang that sent so many
French Jews to their death. Every investigation that ends with a "no grounds
for prosecution," and every trial that ends with
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WHEREVER THEY MAY BE
© 1972, The
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