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Nazi-hunter Klarsfeld: Ready to go to jail
By ERNIE MEYER Jerusalem Post Reporter "I don't like going to jail, but I am willing to go if it will serve to unmask German callousness which allows condemned Nazi war criminals to live in the country unafraid and as respected citizens," Beate Klarsfeld declared in Jerusalem yesterday. She is returning to Paris today after five days here, during which she conferred with her Israeli lawyers on defence strategy for the final phase of her trial in Cologne next Tuesday. Set free several weeks ago on the surety of Binyamin Halevi, MK, Mrs. Klarsfeld faces charges of having attempted to kidnap former Paris Gestapo chief Kurt Lischka to bring him to France, where he was condemned to life imprisonment after World War II. Beate Klarsfeld refuses to take a meek stand before the German court to secure a light sentence, or perhaps to have the three weeks she has already spent in Jail counted as her full sentence. On the contrary she insists on using her trial as a lever to make the German Bundestag ratify the treaty allowing German war criminals to be handed over to France. Mrs. Klarsfeld told The Post yesterday that if her Israeli lawyer, Arye Marinsky, is reduced to the role of a silent observer and is not allowed to appear before the court alongside her official German lawyer, she will instruct both lawyers to withdraw and she herself will not put up any defence- either Yad Vashem last night gave Mrs. Klarsfeld a medal in recognition of her fight against Nazi war criminals. Thanking the Coordination Committee of Ghetto Fighters and Former Nazi Prisoners Organizations at Yad Vashem, Mrs. Klarsfeld said: "I know I won't be alone if I have to go to jail." Former ghetto fighter and Knes-set Member Chaika Grossman told Mrs. Klarsfeld that she will ask the Knesset next week to take the unusual step of appealing to a foreign court on her behalf. Yad Vashem director Yitzhak Arad said that the day of Beate Klarsfeld's trial should be marked by large-scale demonstrations here. In the afternoon Mrs. Klarsfeld was received by Knesset Speaker Israel Yeshayahu, who presented her with the Knesset medallion and with a copy of the protocol of the House session during which her arrest was discussed. At a meeting with Mapam Ministers Victor Shem-tov and Shlomo Rosen, Mrs. Klarsfeld said that, if she were set free, she and her family would accept an invitation to spend the summer at Kibbutz Dalia. Jerusalem City Counsellor Miryam Meyuhas said the City had also invited Mrs. Klarsfeld. In the morning Beate Klarsfeld visited former Syrian war prisoners, recuperating at the Mivtahim rest home in Zichron Ya'acov. She said she regretted the Syrians did not allow her to see them when she was in Damascus after the war, pleading with the Syrians to hand over their list of prisoners. The men said they had been unaware of her attempt to see them arid expressed their admiration for her courage and sympathy. |
