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Klarsfeld family bring ex-Nazis to trial
Culminating ten years of research and the collection of evidence, Beate and Serge Klarsfeld await the long overdue trial of three men who were responsible for the deportation of over 80,000 Jews from France. And since October 23, in Cologne, West Germany, Kurt Lishka, Herbert-M-anin Hagen and Ernst Heinrich-sohn are at last standing trial for he war crimes they perpetrated over French attorney Serge Klarsfeld whose father was murdered in Ausch-witz, has compiled and published documents proving the guilt of the Nazis in their implementation of the "Final Solution" in France. In 1978, he published a monumental work entitled "Le Memorial de la Deportation des Juifs de France", in which he listed the 82,000 Jews deported from France of whom 76,000 were murdered, as well as a history of each convoy. Documentation also contains signatures of the three accused, which reveal their guilt and full knowledge of the crimes which they perpet rated. On a recent visit to Israel, Klarsfeld noted that the trials of Lishka, Hagen and Heinrichsohn are possibly the most important since Eichmann faced the courts in 1962. They are also unprecedented in that the evidence will not be in the testimony of witnesses (the majority of whom were victims of the Holocaust), but instead, documents will help to convict the men. "If witnesses are involved, trials can sometimes be protracted", noted Serge Klarsfeld, "but in these cases, the evidence against Hagen and Lishka are the very documents which they signed, ordering the deportations." Lishka (70) was Gestapo chief in Cologne, with responsibility in the Paris area for internment camps, execution of hostages and the deportation of Jews. Hagen (66) once had Adolf Eichmann as one of his deputies in the S.S. Intelligence unit, dealing with Jews. Later he advised the Supreme Commander of the S.S. in France on Jewish affairs. Heinrichsohn (59), at present the mayor of his German town of Burgstadt, has been exposed for his major role in the deportation of children. Like the other defendants, however, he denies knowledge of the future that awaited those that he deported. "I thought the children would be able to join their parents," he has been quoted as saying. This is the man who terrorised young children in the camps, and personally selected hospitalized Jews, the old and the sick, for deportation and death. Even though it is documentary evidence which will probably convict the accused men, actions spoke louder than words during pre-trial publicity. As far back as 1968, Beate Klarsfeld (nee Kunzel) attracted world attention by a well photographed slap at the face of the former German Chancellor Kurt Kiesinger. For months she had tried to publicize his background as a Nazi propagandist, but it was the slap whose sting was felt around the world, and which possibly brought Kiesinger to his political defeat the following year. "It was a slap in the face of the Nazis by the younger generation of Germans", according to Serge Klarsfeld. Beate, a Protestant from Berlin, has waged a tireless fight against Nazi war criminals ever since her political education began after meeting Serge in Paris when she was 21. "German society does not consider men like Lishka, Hagen and Heinrichsohn criminals because they have been living quietly since 1945", says Beate. The three men have all lived as upstanding citizens in Germany-even though they were sentenced "in absentia" in France after World II (Heinriohsohn was sentenced death whereas the other two received life imprisonment). Forcing German society into self-examination, adds that these "men stand for and actions that must opposed at all costs while their is still time." In a dramatic attempt to bring Lishka to justice in 1974, Beate several supporters attempted to nap this former head of the G« in France. The abortive skirmish resulted in Beate's imprisonment, while Lishka remained free. Reprocussions of the trial, however, forced the German Parliament to ratify a Franco-German accord for the of Nazi criminals in Germany, ratification helped to plug the hole which had enabled criminals remain at large in Germany. Now that their impunity has ended, Lishka, Hagen and Hein sohn face a court, after three dec. |
