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WHEREVER THEY MAY BE © 1972, The
Beate Klarsfeld Foundation
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communist and non-communist organizations, which had
not gotten together for a long time, found themselves acting together. At their
third meeting they formed a joint National Committee for Locating and Punishing
War Criminals. So, as a result of your choosing to go to jail, an active body
for prosecuting war criminals has been created in France.
"Furthermore,
I got in touch with some young people. The Jewish Revolutionary Organization
voted to occupy the German Embassy on April 16, and about twenty young people
went to the embassy on avenue Franklin Roosevelt. As soon as they got inside,
they plastered the walls with stickers: 'Free B.K. Imprison Nazi Criminals.'
Then they shut the embassy gate and chained or hand. cuffed themselves to it.
Some continued to distribute leaflets reading: 'If Germany dares to bring B.K.
to trial, then German justice should be in the defendant's box, for B.K. has
stood up for German honor.'
"When the police got there they cut the
chains and kept the demonstrators in the police station for a few hours. But
the whole affair was a warning shot to the Germans, especially as it had been
filmed for Israeli television.
"The next day you were released on
bail."
But that was not the whole story. Raissa had had a telephone
call from a man who said: "My name is Lichtenstein. I left Germany, when I was
quite young because of the Nazi persecutions. Every day I am wiring flowers to
Beate in the Cologne jail." Then he asked how things stood. My mother-in-law
told him there was hope that I would be let out on bail. He told her: "Don't
worry. I'll take care of that." He was not a rich man, but he thought it his
duty to furnish my bail. When Serge telephoned him that it had been set at
30,000 marks, he immediately went to the Rothschild Bank and deposited that
amount. That's how I had gotten out.
My mother-in-law had come to see
me in the Cologne jail and had brought me an article by the philosopher
Wladimir Jankelevitch that moved me deeply. Locked into a cell though I was, I
could see that I had moved one step closer to the Jewish people, toward the
most adamant Jews for whom there was no possibility of forgetting or forgiving
what the Germans had done. And now, because of what I had done, there was "the
first great opportunity for forgiveness." That article was the greatest reward
and the finest
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WHEREVER THEY MAY BE © 1972, The
Beate Klarsfeld Foundation |
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Back |
Page 198 |
Forward |
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