|
|
 |
WHEREVER THEY MAY BE
© 1972, The
Beate Klarsfeld Foundation
| |
|
| |
 |
Back |
 |
Contents |
Page 213 |
|
Home
Page |
Forward |
 |
| |
| |
those young people, who are now known in Germany as
"the Klarsfeld gang."
With Serge's help I continued my work of
collecting documentation on the leaders of the Nazi police apparatus. We
collected exhaustive data on twenty of the highest officials of the S.D.
Security Police, and also drew up a list of a hundred and fifty German
criminals who had been sentenced by default in France and were now living in
the Federal Republic. We had sent our data on Lischka's and Hagen's French
trials to the public prosecutor in Cologne, and he sent two assistant
prosecutors to the CDJC to verify the authenticity of the documents. Serge
returned to Vienna to give the material to Simon Wiesenthal and Herb Langbein,
who keep bringing up cases before the German courts. I solicited the help of
Frenchmen and Jews living in Germany, and they responded effectively.
To us Germans there was a striking contrast between the French and
their emotional tributes at monuments to the dead, and their unwillingness to
take action in Germany itself, where both the criminals themselves and the
means of bringing them to trial were to be found.
The survivors of the
S.S. Division "Das Reich," which was responsible for Oradour, held a reunion at
Rosenheim, near Munich, on October 16, 1971. I asked the French to stage a
demonstration at it. Even if no more than two people were to show up with
signs, it would show the world via television that France was on the side of
Germans opposed to Nazism. No one volunteered to go, not even the very victims
of the "Das Reich" Division. On the other hand, more than three hundred young
Germans clashed with the former S.S. and the Bavarian police, shouting:
"Oradour! Tulle!" For these Germans, as for me, it was inconceivable that the
worst criminals in all German history should continue to enjoy a shocking
impunity while the German people would have to suffer long for what they had
done.
Four of us – my mother-in-law, my husband, my son, myself,
plus our cat – were still living in a two room apartment. Our files were
stacked to the ceiling, and some had overflowed to the basement. Arno fell
asleep late every night on the sofa in Raissa's room, for he was crazy about
television. I felt sorry for him in our tight financial situation. But if Serge
or I were to give up, who would
|
|
| |
| |
| |
WHEREVER THEY MAY BE
© 1972, The
Beate Klarsfeld Foundation |
|
Back |
Page 213 |
Forward |
|
|
