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WHEREVER THEY MAY BE
© 1972, The
Beate Klarsfeld Foundation
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had decided to act without anyone running any risks.
Lischka was not going to be killed.
We began to get ready by
studying the quite professional plans that Beate had made. She had taken moving
pictures of Lischka in Cologne, and we watched them at the house of a
screenwriter we knew. The operation seemed childishly simple. On the film, the
street on which Lischka lived appeared deserted. It would be impossible not to
recognize Lischka because of his height. Beate gave us many other details, such
as the time Lischka usually left his house and the exact layout of the place.
We perfected our scenario, but we still lacked one partner. Eli thought
of an ideal one:
"I know a Jewish doctor who can put our patient to
sleep without harming him."
It happened that this fellow, the meekest
of the meek, knew judo, as so many meek persons frequently do. We made an
appointment with him at the Edmond Fleg Center on rue de l'Eperon, where he
practiced.
About 1 or 1:30 in the afternoon, we went to the practice
room. The first person we encountered in that place, where normally there are
only Jews, was an impressive-looking Japanese judo expert. We watched him
enviously and wished we could recruit him. The longer we stayed, the more we
wanted to learn judo.
Our new friend, whose name was David, explained
that to put someone to sleep one had to act very quickly. He showed us several
judo holds, but the first time he put one on Eli it was he who took a fall,
perhaps because he weighed less. After that exhausting physical training
session, which lasted about a quarter of an hour, we went to lunch. There was
no hope, we decided, of anesthetizing Lischka; the only recourse was a
blackjack. Eli said he had one and showed it to us, but it seemed ridicuously
[sic] small.
"You don't know anything about blackjacks," Eli said
rather touchily. "With a little one like this you could knock out a mammoth."
Since none of us knew how to use one, we had to agree.
Our
arsenal now consisted of two blackjacks. I should add, however, that one soon
became useless. At the hotel the night before the kidnapping, Eli was
practicing swinging the blackjack, which he had made himself. It head flew off,
miraculously missing a superb mirror on the armoire, and hit the floor of the
room
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WHEREVER THEY MAY BE
© 1972, The
Beate Klarsfeld Foundation |
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Page 143 |
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