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Beate Klarsfeld Trial Upheld After Uproar In Cologne Court
Jerusalem Post July 2, 1974 French resistance fighters heckle witness By BRIAN ARTHUR Jerusalem Post Correspondent and Agencies COLOGNE. — The trial here of Nazi-hunter Beate Klarsfeld broke up in disorder yesterday when former French resistance fighters and war victims heckled a major witness and sang the French na tional anthem. The judge adjourned the hearing after the uproar in the public gal lery, which came during the tes timony of Kurt .Lischka, 65-year old former Gestapo chief of Paris. Mrs. Klarsfeld allegedly tried to kidnap him. The court earlier turned down An appeal by French President Valery Giscard d'Estaing on behalf of Mrs. Klarsfeld. Judge Viktor de Somoskeoy said the French leader's intervention had been rejected because to heed it would amount to interference in the independence of a West German court of law, and it was not ad missible as evidenqe. Dr. Somoskeoy said the French President had expressed concern to the West German Government that Mrs. Klarsfeld might be given a severe prison sentence: The French President's letter, which the judge read to the court, drew attention to the fact that the 1971 Franco-German extradition treaty had yet to be ratified by the Bonn Parliament, and it appealed for unrestricted right of testimony for French witnesses at the trial. Until ratification of the treaty, Lischka cannot be prosecuted by West German authorities for his part in the wartime deportation of French Jews to Nazi death camps. Nor can he be transferred to France to serve the life imprisonment sen tence imposed on him by the French court. Lischka was sentenced in his ab sence by a French court in 1950 for his part in the deportation to death camps of 100,000 French Jews. Mrs. Klarsfeld admits that she, her French-Jewish husband Serge and several French friends tried to abduct Lischka in order to draw attention to the delay in treaty ap proval. She is now using her trial on kidnapping charges as a public forum in her fight against pro minent Nazis still active in West German life. Tension mounted to a highpoint in the courtroom when Lischka was led in to testify ' only a few feet from where Mrs. Klarsfeld was sit ting with her three defence attor neys. She appeared visibly at pains to control her emotions, seldom look ing directly at Lischka and occa sionally resting her forehead and covering her eyes with her right hand. Lischka, a large, balding man with spectacles and wearing a light coloured raincoat, carefully answered the judge's questioning on the de tails of the 1971 kidnapping at tempt. Only when Mrs. Klarsfeld's Israeli lawyer, Arie Marinsky, began his cross examination in an effort to bring out Lischka's role in deport ing thousands of French Jews and others to concentration camps, did the former Gestapo chief's hands begin to tremble. A tense dialogue then ensued be tween Marinsky and the witness: MARINSKY: Have you any sen timents about the number 195590? LISCHKA, I don't know what this number means. MARINSKY: Surely you remem ber your personal number in the S.S.? LISCHKA: I don't remember it any more at all. MARINSKY: Perhaps you re member your Nazi party number? LISCHKA: No. MARINSKY: Why don't you want to talk about the years from 1936 to 1945? Are you ashamed? LISCHKA: (Referring to his right to refuse testimony which might incriminate him) I refuse to answer this question. The lawyer, seeking to show that Lischka lived a respected existence in Germany since the v/ar's end, then tried a different approach: MARINSKY: How long have you lived in Cologne ? LISCHKA: Since 1950. MARINSKY: For 21 consecutive years, is that correct? Is that correct ? LISCHKA: Yes. MARINSKY: Nobody attacked you in these years, until these people (referring to Mrs. Klarsfeld and her group) ? LISCHKA: No. MARINSKY: Not a finger was pointed at you and nobody called you a killer? At this point the judge objected to the phrasing of the question and Marinsky reworded his interroga tion. The judge at one point accused lawyer Marinsky of breaching court regulations by exchanging notes with an Israeli journalist and an observer from the Israeli embassy in Bonn, press attache Yehuda Milo. Speaking in English, Mr. Marin sky fired back at the judge through an interpreter that he (Marinsky) was being accused of receiving in struction from the Israeli embassy. He went on: "Mr. Chairman, please note that the Israeli Bar Association which sent me here seemed to be of the opinion that I am capable of conducting this case without instructions. "I learned my legal and moral message 30 years ago when I learned that almost all of my family had been liquidated by the Nazis." |
