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The Nazi Watch
Newsweek July 7, 1978 Ernst Heinrichsohn cowered behind his bolted door as an angry crowd gathered in the West German hamlet of Mil-tenburg. One person stepped forward to rip down the sign identifying Heinrich-sohn's law office. Then the chanting began—a relentless, rhythmic knell diat linked the unassuming attorney with his notorious past: "Nazi, Nazi, Nazi." Police finally broke up the crowd—80 French Jews, including some who had survived Nazi death camps—and temporarily assured Heinrichsohn's safety. But after 33 years of escaping prosecution, Heinrichsohn had been discovered. And with Herbert-Martin Hagen and Kurt Lischka, two other alleged former Nazis, he will soon be tried in Cologne on charges of sending diousands of French Jews to concentration camps as part of Hitler's "final solution." The latest exposure marked a cherished victory for Serge Klarsfeld, a French Jew who has spent seven years hunting former Nazis. "At last we will get the justice we have begged for," said an optimistic Klarsfeld. Although sentenced by a French military court after the war (Heinrichsohn to death, the others to life imprisonment) the three have not been prosecuted in Germany. If the officials do not act now, Klarsfeld vows, angry French Jews will. "They would take their revenge with pleasure," he said. "Then it would be the German state on trial." 'Death Factory': How strenuously German officials will prosecute the accused Nazis remains in doubt. Some critics have charged that the West German Government has refused to take control of a documents center in Berlin administered by the U.S. because evidence in the files there would force the opening of war-crime trials against thousands of former Nazis. And a current trial of nine men and five women accused of running the Maidanek "death factory" where more than 250,000 prisoners were slaughtered has run aimlessly for over two years. The trial of Heinrichsohn, Hagen and Lischka promises to be similar. Heinrichsohn, 57, in charge of deporting Jewish children from France, has denied all guilt. "I was told they [the children] were being resettled," he said recently, "I couldn't spend every day worrying about what was happening." Survivors of the camps are eagerly awaiting the chance to dispute the three men in court. "It was extraordinary to see a young man so hard," says a woman who remembers Heinrichsohn. "He had no sympathy for the children. They were crying and begging for their mothers. But Heinrichsohn was like marble." French Jews may pack the courtroom. "After all," says Klarsfeld, "what trial can there be if survivors of the camps are not heard?" No court date has been set, but officials promise an efficient trial. |
