|
|
 |
WHEREVER THEY MAY BE
© 1972, The
Beate Klarsfeld Foundation
| |
|
| |
 |
Back |
 |
Contents |
Page 194 |
|
Home
Page |
Forward |
 |
| |
| |
with the Gestapo revealed. That explains the
obstacles ratification of the treaty has encountered even in the inner circles
of the coalition government."
When Ralph Feigelson got back to Paris,
he told the story as follows:
"Prosecutor Joseph Bellinghausen and his
assistant received us courteously. They seemed pale and embarrassed, but not
surprised. After Beate explained the basic papers in her collection, I demanded
the immediate arrest of Lischka. The magistrate, who said he was too young to
know such things, declared himself incompetent. Beate translated
simultaneously, for only having learned German in Auschwitz I do not understand
it well, and I speak it even less well. So when he mentioned a warrant, for
half a minute I thought he meant for Lischka, but he really meant for Beate.
"Out of the mass of proof we had brought he wanted to keep only that
which dealt with war crimes. Beate calmly translated my angry protest. 'They
were very 'proper' as they carried her off before my very eyes. I use that term
instead of 'arrest' because it was not justice but reprisal. Before they took
her away, we held a press conference in Bellinghausen's office at which I said
that her arrest while Lischka was still at liberty was an intolerable
provocation on the part of those who were protesting Nazis, for if that man who
had murdered thousands of Resistance members and Jews I had been in prison, no
one would have tried to kidnap him."
I was taken to Ossendorf Prison, a
short distance from the center of town, where eight hundred women and several
thousand men were confined. My ground-floor cell looked out on a pretty
courtyard with a lawn and flowerbeds. I had a private cell, rather like a
standard motel room – it was 12' by 6' and contained a cot without a
mattress, a wardrobe, a washstand, a toilet, a concrete-barred window, a table,
and a chair. I was allowed to write, to read three books a week but no
newspapers, and to listen to the radio from 6:30 A.M. to 10 P.M. (A guard was
specially detailed to select radio programs, and would tune in those requested
by the inmates and play records of his own choice.) Everything was proper,
clean – we could take two showers a week – and endurable, except for
the loss of freedom. I thought the food better presented than it was in Prague
but just as unpalatable. I could take two thirty-minute walks a day. My fellow
inmates were almost all common
|
|
| |
| |
| |
WHEREVER THEY MAY BE
© 1972, The
Beate Klarsfeld Foundation |
|
Back |
Page 194 |
Forward |
|
|
