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The Holocaust History Project.
The Holocaust History Project.

WHEREVER THEY MAY BE
© 1972, The Beate Klarsfeld Foundation
 
 
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and I had the moral force to fight on; they gave us hope of success, as well as financial support.

On December 15 our demonstration shows signs of success. In the sight of numbers of deputies and journalists who are entering the Bundestag to learn the composition of the new cabinet, the deportees standing erect, Serge and I are surrounded by dozens of policemen and dragged out of the area forbidden to demonstrations. At the police station we are questioned at great length, but what can a police chief do when confronted by deportees who bare their arms branded with their KZ [Konzentrationslager – concentration camp] number in reply to the routine question: "Have you ever before been arrested by German police?" Late in the afternoon we are expelled from Germany and escorted to the border by the police.

Klaus Barbie was not the only one in Lyon carrying out the extermination of Jews and resisters undertaken by the Gestapo. Klaus Barbie was head of the Gestapo in Lyon; above him the central command of the S.D. was in the hands of S.S.-Obersturmbannführer Werner Knab, who was killed in 1945, and his deputies. In early 1944 a new deputy arrived from Marseille, where he had fulfilled the same duties in 1943. This was S.S.-Obersturmbannführer August Moritz, born February 11, 1913, in Hanover.

Moritz had been deputy to the head of the S.D. in Orleans. In Marseille, where he is again deputy-chief, Moritz's signature on certain documents testifies to his anti-Jewish activities. On January 10, 1943, Moritz asks Röthke "to which camp should we send the Jews we have arrested." On March 15, 1943, Moritz reports to Röthke in that fine bureaucratic language that speaks of delivery of Jews as of so much merchandise, that he will be shipping him a load of ten Jews for Drancy in two days. On March 18, another invoice for ten Jews. On March 23, again ten Jews. On March 24, Moritz has difficulties in meeting the delivery – a technical incident, twenty-four hours lost! On March 27, Nazi order is restored. Moritz can go back to the usual rhythm of his shipments. On May 7, 1943, Moritz takes precautions, and under the label "Geheim" [secret] he inquires whether the children of the Jews are to be sent to Drancy or placed in the UGIF Center. In May, Moritz reports a shipment of twenty Jews on the 12th, and again on the 14th, 15th, and 16th. Eighty Jews for Drancy in five
    
   
 
WHEREVER THEY MAY BE
© 1972, The Beate Klarsfeld Foundation
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