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WHEREVER THEY MAY BE
© 1972, The
Beate Klarsfeld Foundation
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mother of a six-year-old boy; "You'd be
better off taking care of your child," and, "Why don't you stay in your
kitchen?" But B.K. does not want to limit her world to a kitchen and a child.
She believes her dedication to Germany's past is only right, and she has taken
the consequences. "I will not retreat," she says. That is how she differs from
other women. She has staked her whole middle-class security on what she is
doing. Her actions have made her name famous and provoked fierce arguments.
Such dedication seems as natural to the Klarsfeld family as cooking or bringing
up children. That's how they differ from other families.
I
resumed my relations with the Cologne reporters, who got in touch with Dr.
Bellinghausen, the examining magistrate. I learned then that for the time being
no warrant was out for Serge's or my arrest. But Der Spiegel had just
published quite a long article on the subject.
To intensify the
pressure, we decided to send all our data on Lischka and Hagen to the German
courts. I asked Ralph Feigelson, a French Resistance fighter who had been sent
to Auschwitz, to take the papers to the examining magistrate in Cologne dressed
in his concentration-camp uniform with all his decorations pinned to his chest.
Ralph's fine physique and impressive beard made him very photogenic. He would
be a good subject for the German reporters, and I was counting on this more
than on their interest in the data. By photographing him they would give the
impression all over Germany that the Resistance and Deportees associations in
France were behind me.
Ralph Feigelson was to go to the Press Building
in Cologne, and from there reporters who had been alerted by me were to
accompany him to the Cologne court. But on the afternoon of March 3l, a few
hours before he left, I telephoned Cologne and learned that when the reporters
had questioned Bellinghausen about why there was no warrant out for my arrest,
he had said: "I am under no obligation to believe what I read in the papers."
At that moment I realized that the German courts, which were being
hesitant about issuing a warrant because they did not want the scandal to
spread, could be caught in a trap. If I were to go in person to Bellinghausen,
my provocation could get things moving. There would be a test of strength. If
he let me go free, he would prove that the impunity war criminals like Lischka
and Hagen enjoy in the Federal Republic is such an outrage that they cannot
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WHEREVER THEY MAY BE
© 1972, The
Beate Klarsfeld Foundation |
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Page 192 |
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