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WHEREVER THEY MAY BE
© 1972, The
Beate Klarsfeld Foundation
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Just a few minutes earlier, however, Marcel
Rivière of Progrès had assured me that I could go to the court.
Getting angry would only have led to bitterness. I preferred to save my
strength for what had to be done.
On Monday, forty-eight of us took
off, mostly Resistance veterans and young LICA members. After a stop in Turin,
we landed in Munich at eleven A.M. German reporters were at the airport, and
also anti-fascists from the Association of German Victims of Nazism, some
carrying signs demanding that the German courts stop protecting Nazi criminals.
Mme. Benguigui and M. Halaunbrenner joined us. We drove to the French
Consulate on Mühlstrasse, where one of the leaders of the delegation took
me aside:
"Please don't go into the consulate. We have already arranged
with the consul that you will not, for it would injure Franco-German relations,
owing to your having slapped Chancellor Kiesinger."
I replied: "All I
have to say to you is that I carry a French passport, that I don't take orders,
and that I have as much right as you to enter a French Consulate."
And
I did.
I told Vice-Consul Leglaye that I was astonished at what had
been arranged. He waved his hand wearily and, since he had been a deportee,
apologized for the incident.
Then, as its organizers had planned, we
went for a long breakfast in a Bayerstrasse restaurant – even though the
more sensible complained that it would have been better to skip a meal this one
time, or just pick up a quick snack somewhere.
The names of the twelve
"official" delegates were read out and they got up to go to the court. I did
not restrain my indignation, for I knew the German reporters would be expecting
fifty people.
"It would be a shame for us to stay here," I said. "We
must all go together."
At the courthouse on Maxburgstrasse, the twelve
"wise men" went into the building while the young people and I managed to lure
the others out of the bus and at least mass them in front of the door. The
reporters who encircled us were disappointed at the French people's polite
behavior and their orderly retreat when the doorman kept them from going into
the court.
Everything had been worked out beforehand with the consulate
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WHEREVER THEY MAY BE
© 1972, The
Beate Klarsfeld Foundation |
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Back |
Page 237 |
Forward |
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