Serge klarsfeld biography

On March 2, , Alois Brunner was convicted, in absentia, of crimes against humanity in the Palais de Justice in Paris. In Nice, he had directed a commando unit of Austrian SS men who arrested Jews in the late summer and fall of Among them was Arno Klarsfeld, Serge's father. In and , Brunner was sentenced to death, in absentia, by military tribunals in Marseilles and Paris for war crimes.

In , Klarsfeld lodged a a new charge of crimes against humanity against Brunner, once again centered on children. Between July , , Brunner directed the arrests of children who were in Jewish orphanages in and around Paris. In most cases, their parents had been previously been deported. Brunner's zeal was such that he arrested these children as the Allies were advancing on Paris.

He deported his victims on July 31, , aboard the last convoy to leave Drancy for Auschwitz, only three weeks before the liberation of Paris Two hundred and eighty-four of them were murdered at Auschwitz. The youngest victim, Henri Lindenbaum, was two years old when he was murdered along with his sister, Charlotte, age three. Brunner had been hosted by Syria since the 's.

In , he lost his left eye to a letter bomb in Damascus. At the time, he was plotting to take Jewish hostages to trade for his old boss Eichmann, who was awaiting execution by the noose in Jerusalem. Brunner was then forgotten until Serge and Beate set out to relocate him in They hired private detectives in Vienna who were able to gathered information about Brunner at the home of his daughter, Irene, including his unlisted phone number.

Beate called the number from Paris. Masquarading as the daughter of an old friend of Brunner, she was able to trick Brunner into admitting his identity, even though he had long used the alias of Dr. Georg Fischer. A few months later, "Fischer" received a package at the Damascus post office bearing the return address of a Viennese apothacary from which he ordered herbal medicines.

The package exploded, tearing off four fingers from Brunner's left hand. This attack was a direct result of information gleaned by the Klarsfelds in Vienna. It was a physical way to let Brunner know that Jews he had not caught had not forgotten him and would not let him rest. As a result of Serge's documentation of Brunner's arrest of the children in July, , a French court charged him with crimes against humanity in Serge and Beate each traveled twice ti Damascus, over the coming years, to demand that the Syrian government expell Brunner to justice.

Each time, Syria insisted that no such person was in their country--even in the face of news reports, including photographs , of Brunner, who gloated that he had killed so much "Jewish garbage. On the bench of three judge panel were 52 volumes of documents comprising tens of thousands of pages. Brunner was found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment.

He would now be 89 years old, but it is unknown if he remains alive. The Klarsfelds were instrumental in locating Klaus Barbie in Bolivia in and continued their struggle to have him brought to trial in France for more than ten years. At the trial, Serge Klarsfeld was the first of many private prosecution lawyers testifying against Barbie, who was ultimately sentenced to life imprisonment.

He commissioned an important work on the gas chambers by Jean Claude Presaac to deny any intellectual legitimacy to the challenges of Holocaust deniers. In , the Klarsfelds tried to kidnap Kurt Lischka, who was responsible for the deportation of some 76, Jews from France. Lischka was living openly under his own name in Cologne.

Serge klarsfeld biography

They planned to deliver him to justice in Paris, as a previous conviction in France blocked further legal action against Lischka in Germany. The police caught them trying to push the former Nazi into the trunk of their car. Although the kidnapping was unsuccessful, it served to draw media attention to their cause. Beate turned herself in to the German authorities, saying that they must arrest either her or Lischka.

After an international outcry, their sentences were suspended. Lischka remained at large until , when he was sentenced to ten years imprisonment. They also tracked two other Nazis living openly in Germany who were responsible of the deportation of Jews from occupied France —Ernst Heinrichsohn, and Herbert Hagen — who were also tried.

The book lists deportees by train convoy, last name, first name, date of birth, place of birth, and nationality. They found Brunner living under the name Georg Fischer in Damascus. Serge and Beate each traveled twice to Damascus to demand that the Syrian government expel Brunner, but the Syrians denied he was in the country. According to one story, Beate went to Syria to try to lure him into a trap set by the Israelis to capture him.

She found his phone number and called him to say he should leave his apartment because the Israelis knew where he was. Brunner left before the Israelis arrived. Beate was arrested and put in jail for three months before the Syrians deported her. In , Lischka was convicted of a felony in West Germany and sentenced to prison, together with his co-defendants: Lischka to ten years of imprisonment, Hagen and Heinrichsohn to twelve and six years respectively.

On 9 July , the Klarsfelds were the targets of a car bombing at their home in France. No one was in the car when the bomb detonated, and no one was injured in the vicinity of the blast. Several officials were indicted due in part to the work of the Klarsfelds. In the s, the Klarsfelds considered kidnapping Barbie in much the same way the Mossad did Adolf Eichmann but the plan fell through.

They decided instead to bring international pressure to force his extradition.