Serge and Beate Klarsfeld -wiki-
French activists known for engaging in Holocaust documentation and anti-Nazi activism. Serge Klarsfeld, a Jewish person, spent the war years in France. In 1943, his father was arrested by the SS in Nice during a roundup ordered by Alois Brunner, and deported to the Auschwitz concentration camp, where he died. Young Serge was cared for in a home for Jewish children operated by the OSE (Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants) organization; his mother and sister also survived the war in Vichy France, helped by underground French Resistance after late 1943. Beate was born Beate Künzel, the daughter of a Christian, German-born, regular Wehrmacht soldier. The couple were married in 1963 and made their home in Paris. Their son, Arno Klarsfeld, born 1965, is a human-rights attorney and he has worked with French president Nicholas Sarkozy during his tenure as minister of the interior.
In 1966 Beate was fired from her job at the Deutsch-Französisches Jugendwerk (Franco-German Alliance for Youth), simply for denouncing the West German Chancellor, Kurt Georg Kiesinger, for his involvement in Nazi propaganda during the Third Reich. At that time, several leading West German politicians had Nazi backgrounds which, during the first two decades after the war, had been conveniently forgotten.
In August 1970, Beate was arrested in Warsaw by the Polish authorities and deported for having protested against what she perceived as Polish antisemitism (which was officially known rather as anti-Zionism in the Soviet bloc). This was considered as a direct insult to the Polish socialist state and to Polish nationhood; she was accused of being a German spy trying to cause uproar in the People's Republic of Poland.
In 1971, Serge and Beate tried to abduct Kurt Lischka, a former Gestapo chief, and hand him over to the French authorities (his prosecution in Germany being prevented by legal technicalities resulting from a prior conviction). The Klarsfelds were convicted of felony charges and sentenced to two months in prison in 1974. Due to international protests, the sentence was suspended. This incident, and later activities by the Klarsfelds and by descendants of Lischka's victims, eventually resulted in a revision of the legal situation and, in 1980, in Lischka's felony conviction and sentence.
The Klarsfelds campaigned against former United Nations Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim, elected President of Austria in 1986 amid allegations that he covered up his war time activities as an officer in the Wehrmacht.Beate Klarsfeld was arrested and deported from Syria in 1991 after she traveled to Damascus to publicize Syria's (alleged) harboring of Alois Brunner, who, as commander of the Drancy internment camp outside Paris from June 1943 to August 1944, was responsible for sending some 140,000 European Jews to the gas chambers. Brunner was condemned in absentia in France in 2001 to a life sentence for crimes against humanity.
In 1996, they joined the outcry against Radovan Karadžić and Ratko Mladić for alleged war crimes and genocide in the former Yugoslavia.
French activists known for engaging in Holocaust documentation and anti-Nazi activism. Serge Klarsfeld, a Jewish person, spent the war years in France. In 1943, his father was arrested by the SS in Nice during a roundup ordered by Alois Brunner, and deported to the Auschwitz concentration camp, where he died. Young Serge was cared for in a home for Jewish children operated by the OSE (Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants) organization; his mother and sister also survived the war in Vichy France, helped by underground French Resistance after late 1943. Beate was born Beate Künzel, the daughter of a Christian, German-born, regular Wehrmacht soldier. The couple were married in 1963 and made their home in Paris. Their son, Arno Klarsfeld, born 1965, is a human-rights attorney and he has worked with French president Nicholas Sarkozy during his tenure as minister of the interior.
In 1966 Beate was fired from her job at the Deutsch-Französisches Jugendwerk (Franco-German Alliance for Youth), simply for denouncing the West German Chancellor, Kurt Georg Kiesinger, for his involvement in Nazi propaganda during the Third Reich. At that time, several leading West German politicians had Nazi backgrounds which, during the first two decades after the war, had been conveniently forgotten.
In August 1970, Beate was arrested in Warsaw by the Polish authorities and deported for having protested against what she perceived as Polish antisemitism (which was officially known rather as anti-Zionism in the Soviet bloc). This was considered as a direct insult to the Polish socialist state and to Polish nationhood; she was accused of being a German spy trying to cause uproar in the People's Republic of Poland.
In 1971, Serge and Beate tried to abduct Kurt Lischka, a former Gestapo chief, and hand him over to the French authorities (his prosecution in Germany being prevented by legal technicalities resulting from a prior conviction). The Klarsfelds were convicted of felony charges and sentenced to two months in prison in 1974. Due to international protests, the sentence was suspended. This incident, and later activities by the Klarsfelds and by descendants of Lischka's victims, eventually resulted in a revision of the legal situation and, in 1980, in Lischka's felony conviction and sentence.
The Klarsfelds campaigned against former United Nations Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim, elected President of Austria in 1986 amid allegations that he covered up his war time activities as an officer in the Wehrmacht.Beate Klarsfeld was arrested and deported from Syria in 1991 after she traveled to Damascus to publicize Syria's (alleged) harboring of Alois Brunner, who, as commander of the Drancy internment camp outside Paris from June 1943 to August 1944, was responsible for sending some 140,000 European Jews to the gas chambers. Brunner was condemned in absentia in France in 2001 to a life sentence for crimes against humanity.
In 1996, they joined the outcry against Radovan Karadžić and Ratko Mladić for alleged war crimes and genocide in the former Yugoslavia.
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