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Chronology 2003 Newletter We also obtained more recently an extension of the government decree for those orphans who lost their mother and/or father killed in France because they were Jews or who died in french or german camps in France. The same extension was obtained for the orphans of less than 21 years old when their parents were arrested but who were above that age when their parents were deported. As member of the Matteoli Commission, Serge Klarsfeld was one of the creators of the Commission which is in charge of indemnifying jewish assets stolen in France during the war. Member of the Board of Directors and of the Bureau of the Foundation for the Memory of the Shoah in Paris and Chairman of the Commission of "Memory Links", Serge Klarsfeld assumes a task which requires a very important pro bono work. Same situation as President of "The Sons and Daughters of Jews Deported from France". Serge and Arno Klarsfeld support actively the cause of Israel and the cause of the United States (see enclosed articles) in the most important newspapers in France such as "Le Monde" and "Le Figaro" in spite of the anti-israel and anti- american campaigns so active nowadays in France. The Foundation has sent contributions to two widows and children of Israeli citizens killed while trying to prevent terrorist attacks as well as to a boy wounded in a bus attack in Jerusalem. Arno Klarsfeld, 38, Member of the Paris, New York and California Bars who became in 2002 an Israeli citizen was incorporated in the Israeli army on november 16th 2003. Beate Klarsfeld has lead researches in Germany in order to identify the 700 German and Austrian jewish children who were deported from France and to prepare an exhibition in German on the subject: "German Jewish Children Deported from France". A new movie on the Klarsfelds has been made and shown at the Mill Valley Film Festival and several times on french television. The Klarsfelds are still involved in the final judiciary stage of the Maurice Papon case. The Supreme Court (Cour de Cassation) will decide in 2004 if the 1998 sentence is to be definitely confirmed or cancelled. Serge Klarsfeld has organized, from A to Z, the great exhibition on French Jewish Children Deported from France, which is shown in the most important French Railway Stations, each time two or three weeks, since march 27th 2002 (date of the first deportation of Jews from France), sixty years ago. ln 2002 the exhibition was shown in Paris St Lazare, Lyons Part- Dieu, Limoges, Clermont- Ferrand and Marseilles. ln 2003 the exhibition was shown in Rennes, Lille, Strasbourg, Perpignan, Nice, Toulouse and Nancy. ln 2004 it will be shown in Bordeaux, Grenoble, Metz and Paris-Nord before to find a permanent place. For the 60th anniversary of the deportation of the Jews from France, Serge Klarsfeld has also organized an unprecedented way of commemoration. Sixty years, day for day after the departure of each transport (77 all together from March 1942 to August 1944), at the very place from where the convoy left, Serge Klarsfeld and his friends, Sons and daughters of Jews deported from France, give the possibility at noon to the members of families deported by that convoy, to express what they feel. Serge Klarsfeld explains the history of each transport and then all the names of the deportees of that convoy are read by the audience. Forty-four convoys were honored in 2002 (twice in Compiègne, 6 times in Pithiviers, twice in Beaune-la-Rolande, one in Angers and in Lens, 32 times in Drancy), seventeen in 2003 in Drancy. Sixteen will be honored in 2004: 13 in Drancy, one in Lyon, one in Toulouse and one in Clermont-Ferrand. Serge and Beate Klarsfeld assumed aIl the expenses for the transportation from Italy to Lituania of the seven master pieces in bronze on the Shoah by the great sculptor Arbit Blatas (Kaunas 1908 -New York 1999) donated by his widow, Regina Resnik-Blatas. The Beate Klarsfeld Foundation paid also the casting in New York and the transportation to the Gaon Museum in Vilnius of the bust of the greatest Lituanian artist, Jacques Lipschitz, by Blatas. The inauguration of the two works took place on september 22d, 2003 in Fort IX in Kaunas and in Vilnius in the presence of the Lituanian President. Most of the 878 Jews deported by convoy 73 of May 15th, 1944 from Drancy were killed in Fort IX in Kaunas; the others were killed in Tallin / Estonia. The Klarsfelds organized in 1993 the first pilgrimage to Kaunas and Tallin in hommage to the deportees of that convoy and already put commemorative plaques and a monument. Serge Klarsfeld discovered also in 2003 one of the three known photographs of the mass-killings which took place in July 1941 in Fort VII in Kaunas.
However these activities naturally require courage, time and dedication but it also requires money.
Full page published in "Le Monde"
A great ceremony has taken place on september 22d 2003 for the
inauguration To the left of Serge Klarsfeld, of whom an interpretor translates the speech, the Prseident of the Lituanian Republic, Rolandas Paksas.
LA DEPORTATION
LA NUIT DE CRISTAL
LA CARRIERE
LA PUNITION
L'EXECUTION DANS LE GHETTO
LA REVOLTE DANS LE GHETTO
LA SOLUTION FINALE
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