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WHEREVER THEY MAY BE
© 1972, The
Beate Klarsfeld Foundation
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dubious evidence was believed. Generally I myself am
not capable of recognizing a person I met only a day ago unless there is
something striking about him, so I tend to question the accuracy of persons
who, after twenty-seven years, say they are absolutely certain. The opposite
was just as likely; in spite of the fact that Altmann was certainly Barbie and
that the Munich prosecutor had stated that he was "one hundred percent sure
that any German court whatever would be convinced," it could very well have
happened that those witnesses might have proved unable to identify him. In that
event, what would have happened? I would have gone rushing around with all my
data, and no one would have believed me.
Among the witnesses on the
ORTF program was Mme. Simone Lagrange, whom Barbie had interrogated in June
1944, when her name was Simone Kadousche:
I was then thirteen years old. When we
reached Gestapo headquarters on place Bellecour, we were put into a room on the
fourth floor, where I saw Barbie for the first time. He came toward my parents
and me, gently stroking a big gray cat, and without raising his voice he asked
my mother whether I was her only child. Mama replied that she had two younger
children but she did not know where they were. Then Barbie, who had paid no
attention at all to my father, came over to me and politely asked me where my
two little brothers were. When I told him I did not know, he gently set his cat
on a table, then struck me brutally hard twice, saying he could find them well
enough himself.
The German woman who was our keeper advised Mama to
tell him where my brothers were if she wanted to escape an interrogation, but
Mama and I knew we were going to be sent to a concentration camp where little
children were killed.
On June 7 they came to take me to place
Bellecour, where Barbie himself was waiting to question me again. He said
politely that if I told him where my brothers were he would send all three of
us to an old folks' home, where we would be well taken care of and not
deported. After I told him again that I did not know, he came over to me,
grabbed me by my long hair, and yanked me close to him. Then he struck me over
and over again for at least fifteen minutes. I was in great pain, but I did not
want to cry. Finally he let me go, and I fell to the floor. He kicked me in the
stomach until I got up again. Then he himself took me to jail. He told my
mother that she had no heart to allow her daughter to be beaten, and if she
would talk now, he would stop interrogating me. Then he struck her several
times.
I was taken back to the Gestapo four times, but you can be sure
that they got nothing out of me. Then they put me into a different cell.
I
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WHEREVER THEY MAY BE
© 1972, The
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