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Victory for justice
Jerusalem Post Feburary 14, 1980 IT WAS nine years ago that Serge Klarsfeld confronted former SS-officer Kurt Lischka. in his native Cologne, and asked him why he.refused to face justice about his part In the deportation to death camps of 73,000 Jews from France. Llachka's arrogant and confident answer was: "I don't owe you any explanation. I will answer only to German Justice." Well, German justice has now spoken. After a four-month business-like trial, presided over by Judge Heinz Passbender, defendant Lischka received ten years in jail,- while- his chief collaborators Herbert Hagen and Ernst Heinrichsohn drew twelve and six years each. The judgment is a double victory. It is- a victory*for the "new Germany" which 35 years after the end of the World War, is able to see complicity- In genocide for what it is — and to see that it is-punished. That the victory is limited in scope-— not far from Cologne, in a Duesseldorf courtroom, the Majdanek trial is dragging on in its fourth year — Is no reason- to undervalue it. But the verdict is also a personal victory for Be ate and Serge Klarsfeld. In more than ten years of private effort they flushed the three men out of their hiding places in prosperous civilian jobs in Germany itself. They almost single handedly forced the German Bundestag to pass the legislation making it possible to retry the men in German courts, after they had all been sentenced in absentia in French courts. The true character of the Cologne court can be measured by the reaction of part of the other, "old Germany." The majority of the citizens of Buergstadt. in Bavaria, it turns out, support their former mayor Ernst Heinrichsohn, who resigned only after the verdict. They — both old and young — believe he only did his "duty." It remains to be seen whether this is a fringe opinion — or whether it still expresses a national mood. The next opportunity for Germany to speak its mind may come pretty soon,, for Serge and Be ate Klarafeld already have, their sights, on other unpunished Nazi criminals. |
