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Barbie received notoriety
BY WILLIAM A. WEATHERS The Cincinnati Enquirer / May 27, 1992 The prosecution of high-ranking Nazi official Klaus Barbie brought the most notoriety but lesser-known cases brought the most satisfaction, Nazi hunter Serge Klarsfeld said Tuesday in Cincinnati. "That case was the most difficult one we took in our hands," Klarsfeld said of the efforts by himself and his wife. But, he told an audience of 70 at Hebrew Union College, it "was less important than that of the Nazis still living in Germany." It was important to prosecute the Nazi officials who had fled Germany after World War II, he said. But the prosecution of former Nazis still in Germany working as lawyers and businessmen accomplished more toward "improving the political morality of Germany," Klarsfeld said. Klarsfeld and his wife, Beate, spoke about "anti-Semitism in Europe" to the board of governors of Hebrew Union College. The Klarsfelds are in town so Serge Klarsfeld can receive the Dr. Bernard Heller Prize in arts, letters and humanities and religion mencement at 5:30 p.m. today at Rockdale Temple. The Heller Prize is an annual international award presented to an individual or organization for work, writing or research. The award includes a $10,000 honorarium. For many years, Klarsfeld — a lawyer and historian who specializes in Jews in France during World War II — has been committed to prosecuting Nazi criminals. Klarsfeld's father died in the Nazi gas chambers at Auschwitz. Klarsfeld and his wife were instrumental in locating Klaus Barbie in Bolivia in 1972 and for more than 10 years struggled to have him brought to trial in France. During the 1987 trial, Klarsfeld was the first of many private prosecution lawyers testifying against Barbie, who was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment. In recent months. Klarsfeld discovered long-lost files containing the names of 149,734 Jews who were targeted for deportation by French collaboration police. Presumed destroyed after the war, the files were buried in the records of the ministry of veterans affairs for 45 years. |
