They are called “Nazi
hunters” for bringing Klaus Barbie and others to
justice — and for their major role in the trial now
making headlines in France of a former cabinet minister.
But Serge and Beate Klarsfeld have
devoted themselves not just to the perpetrators of Nazi
terror but to their victims. Thus, Serge Klarsfeld's most
recent book — 1,881 pages — is devoted to children sent
from France to the death camps, a book “born of my
obsession that these children will not be
forgotten.” It contains 2,500 photos of the
children.
Residents of France, the Klarsfeld came
to Union in mid-March to open an exhibit based on their
new book, to receive honorary degrees, and to convey the
lessons of the Holocaust to students two generations
removed from it. The Klarsfelds spoke about their
experiences during a tribute in a crowded Memorial Chapel
— a crowd so large that people had to be turned away at
the door (the event was taped by both PBS and C-SPAN).
Each received an honorary doctor of
laws degree. President Roger Hull, conferring the degree
on Serge Klarsfeld, said, “Although your father was
a victim of the Nazis, you have said that your work is
not a matter of personal revenge but a collective fight
for justice. In your words, 'I deeply believe that all
those who died during the Holocaust believed that someone
would try to right this wrong after the war.'
“With no large organization behind
you, with no huge staff or great sources of funding, you
have confronted murderers and obtained justice. To you,
your work against the Holocaust is a duty and an honor;
to us, it is a beacon of morality.”
To Beate Klarsfeld, the president said,
“You once said that you do not think about fear
beause to do so would paralyze you. Your courage is
captured in a single astonishing event.
“In the 1960s, Kurt-George
Kiesinger was appointed the German chancellor. Outraged
that a man who had been involved with Nazi radio
propaganda could be so honored, you wrote articles about
him for French newspapers and, at a political rally,
slapped him across the face. His party was beaten in the
next election, and he was replaced by Willy Brandt, a
former Resistance fighter. Your courage emboldens us all
to say 'yes' to what is right and 'no' to what is
wrong.”
Duirng a conversation among the
Klarsfeld, President Hull, and Professor Steven Berk, the
Klarsfelds said they hoped that publications and exhibits
like theirs wil increase awrenesss of past atrocities and
prevent such acts in the future.
Looking out at the students in the
audience, Serge Klarsfeld said, “People will look to
the future but will have lessons of the past. Hopefully,
the world will be better in the twenty-first century than
in the twentieth.”
Berk, the Florence B. Sherwood
Professor of History, said that it would be a tragedy for
those in the audience to think that it was a pity what
happened to the Jews but that it does not have much
impact today.
“Racism in its various forms has
stalked this land and continues to affect us,” he
said. “It is a evil that leads to Auschwitz. It is
an evil that leads to death. Only when you purge the
hatred and racism will you understand what the Klarsfelds
had to teach.”
In addition to the Klarsfeld exhibition
of more than 350 photographs and documents, called French
Children of the Holocaust — A Memorial Exhibition, there
was a second photo exhibition. Called Of Light Amidst the
Darkness — The Danish Rescue, the exhibit's stunning
photographs by Judith Ellis Glickman showed not only the
Danish resistance and rescue efforts but the
extermination camps as well.
During the six weeks that the exhibits
were up in the Nott Memorial, more than 4,000 students
from area schools came for tours. Professor Clifford
Brown, chair of the Nott Memorial Exhibition Committee,
said, “We hope that this is the beginning of a
relationship that will bring in local students and
residents. We would like to have one or two exhibits a
year that will generate community interest of this
magnitude.”
A book about memory
Serge Klarsfeld is a Jew who as a child
just missed being sent to Auschwitz. Beate Klarsfeld is
the daughter of a Wehrmacht soldier. Together they have
devoted their lives to not letting the world forget the
Nazi era.
Today this means continuing to pursue
Nazis and Nazi collaborators, like Maurice Papon, a
cabinet minister in the government of Valery Giscard
d'Estaing until 1981. The highest Vichy official to be
prosecuted for crimes against humanity, Papon is now on
trial in Bordeaux.
It means bringing the lessons of the
Holocaust to places like Bosnia and Rwanda.
And it means spending the whole night
looking for the correct spelling of a child's name.
“This book is not about history.
It is about memory,” wrote the reviewer of French
Children of the Holocaust in the January 19 issue of The
New Republic. Klarsfeld “has produced something more
humble than history, and yet more painstakingly
researched, and more devastating. The photographs of
2,500 murdered children are reproduced in this volume. It
took Klarsfeld more than 20 years to find names for
children who died nameless, and to put faces to names
that were nothing more than names.”
The Klarsfelds first drew the world's
attention in 1967, when Beate approached the chancellor
of West Germany, Kurt Georg Kiesinger, at a political
meeting and slapped him across the face, shouting
“Nazi, Nazi!” Kiesinger had been a propaganda
officer for Hitler, and the incident was the beginning of
the end of his political career.
In 1972, the Klarsfelds determined that
a businessman in Lima, Peru, was Klaus Barbie, “the
butcher of Lyon,” who as chief of the Lyon Gestapo
sent 7,000 Jews to death camps and killed 4,000 non-Jews.
When Barbie fled to Bolivia, the Klarsfelds launched a
campaign that culminated in his return to France in 1983.
With Serge as a lead attorney, Barbie received a life
sentence.
But Serge Klarsfeld says most Nazi
killers are not to be found hiding in remote places.
“They go on with their lives as if nothing had
happened. When the war ended, ninety percent of them
remained in Europe. The most amazing thing about them —
and this doesn't vary — is how self-centered they are.
All of them look ten years younger than their peers. They
have no conflicts and certainly no guilt.”
Adds Beate: “The former head of
the Gestapo in Paris ended up as the president of the
Tribunal for Social Affairs in Lower Saxony — a judge!
This creature sent a trainload of French, most of them
Resistance fighters, to Dachau — without any water! By
the time they arrived in Germany, 1,000 were already
dead. Yet, there he was, living his ordinary life and
functioning as a respectable judge. When we exposed him
for who he was, he complained, 'I'm very worried about
this — I could lose half my pension.' “
Their visit began six weeks of
Holocaust exhibits, films, discussions, and observances
that culminated in Day of Remembrance services April 23.
Lessons for Humanity was presented by Union and the
Holocaust Survivors and Friends Education Center. The
photographs by Judith Glickman were commisssioned by the
Thanks to Scandinavia Foundation.