In His Prison Cell or in Court, Barbie Shows Continued Indifference

In or out of court here, where he is on trial for crimes against humanity, Klaus Barbie continues to show indifference to his alleged victims’ sufferings and to the trial itself.

In court, where "the Butcher of Lyon" last appeared on June 6, he listens to the horror stories of his interrogations and ensuing deportations with a half-amused smile. In his cell at St. Joseph Prison here, he sat throughout last week glued to his television set watching the French Open tennis tournament.

At one point, his prison wardens became so upset with his indifference that, contrary to prison regulations, they confiscated his TV. The practice in France is to allow non-sentenced prisoners, or those still awaiting sentences, to watch TV and read newspapers at will. Prison authorities refused to comment on this incident, but some wardens have privately told newsmen that "now that the tennis tournament is over" the set has been returned to Barbie’s cell.

VICTIMS PERTURBED

Barbie’s absence has frustrated most of the victims and the plaintiff’s lawyers and it has somewhat taken the trial off course. Former victims, witnesses and lawyers address an empty dock and the defense lawyer, Jacques Verges, who occasionally barely manages to hide his glee at this paradox.

Prosecutor Andre Truche has not requested that Barbie be present for the entire trial, but has on several occasions tried to make him reveal some of his hidden personality and explain how he became a convinced Nazi in the 1930’s. He also prodded Barbie to explain some of the tenets of National Socialism and his own attitude to its racist theories.

Last Friday, when Barbie made one of his brief appearances in court, Truche told him: "In years from now people will see a film of this trial (the proceedings will be released in 20 years).

"They will hear the testimonies and they will probably ask themselves, ‘Didn’t he have anything to say? No explanation to offer?’ Maybe even your own grandchildren or great-grandchildren might research into the past of their families and try to understand what had happened. Don’t you think that you should respond?"

‘NOTHING TO SAY’

Barbie, true to the stance he had adopted since May 13, when he claimed that he was "a hostage illegally brought to France," remained silent. He only repeated his by now standard retort, "Nichts zu sagen, Herr President" (I have nothing to say, Mr. President).

The trial has entered a second phase. For the first four weeks, the court, nine jurors and three judges heard testimony from former victims–mainly Jews who often hobbled to the stand and poured out more than 40 years of pent-up frustrations. Now the court is hearing witnesses described as "of general interest," mainly historians, researchers and former leaders of France’s wartime anti-German resistance forces. The trial began on May 11 and is expected to end July 3 or 4. Among the latter witnesses was the late French President Charles De Gaulle’s niece, Genevieve DeGaulle-Anthonioz, 66, herself a former deportee to Ravensbruck, a notorious women’s concentration camp. Testifying Tuesday, she said that babies were often drowned in buckets of water shortly after birth at the camp and that conditions were so horrible that most women preferred to see their children dead rather than survive for another few weeks, or months at the most.

Verges privately says that his client still hopes that the Bolivian Supreme Court will decide that his extradition was illegal and ask France to return him.

Truche last week told Barbie, "One thing is certain, you will never see Bolivia again." Even then, Barbie did not flinch.