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Knesset to appeal to Bundestag to free Beate, try Nazi criminals
Jerusalem Post May 3, 1974 Jerusalem Post Knesset Reporter The Knesset is to make a formal appeal to the West German Bundestag to work for the release of Nazi-hunter Beate Klarsfeld and to expedite legislation against Nazi -criminals who are still at large. This was decided yesterday in a special session of the House, called during the present Passover recess, at the request of more than 30 back-benchers from nearly every faction. The plenum, which was well over half full despite the early hour and the inconvenient day when so many vital political events were taking place elsewhere, voted unanimously — and it seemed enthusiastically — to empower the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defence. Committee to draft the precise terms of the appeal to the Bundestag. Justice Minister Halm Zadok said that Israel had been most astonished at the fact that the Bundestag had failed to ratify the extradition agreement regarding- Nazi criminals. Enlightened world opinion, and most countries of Europe which had suffered under the Nazis, had been just as surprised, the Minister said. Whatever legal aspects there might be to the activities of Beate Klarsfeld, the Minister said, "one could not possibly fail to admire her courage and the Integrity of her motives and her intentions." Zadok said: "Here we have a German woman of the younger generation, who feels the full weight of guilt resting on her people, vis a vis the Jewish people. She is not the emissary of any organization, or body, or grouping whatsoever — but of her own conscience alone, a conscience which doesn't allow her to accept the fact that a Nazi criminal, the Gestapo chief in Paris who was responsible for the death of 100,000 persons, mostly Jews, is not being extradited to France for punishment although a French court sentenced him to life imprisonment in absentia as long ago as 1950." Akiva Nof, Likud, who presented the motion, said the Knesset's demand should call for Beate Klars-feld's immediate release; it should call for appropriate trial and punishment for Nazi killers; and it should demand that West Germany ratify all agreements with France and other countries, to bring Nazi criminals to justice. |
