West Germany has agreed to reopen the file against the former Lyons Gestapo commander, Klaus Barbie. Munich District Attorney, Manfred Ludolph, in charge of anti-Nazi investigations and prosecutions, said last night that he will resume legal proceedings against Barbie on condition that a single live witness be found to testify that the former Gestapo man knew what the fate of the deportees would be. Ludolph made this pledge after a dramatic confrontation with two French women, Mrs. Fortunee Benguigui and Mrs. Beate Klarsfeld.
The 60-year-old Mrs. Benguigui had her three young children deported to Auschwitz where they died in the gas chambers. Mrs. Klarsfeld has conducted a year-long investigation on the war-time activities of Barbie in Nazi-occupied Lyons. The two women, part of a 45-member French delegation who had come to Munich to ask for the reopening of the Barbie file, had earlier observed a nine-hour hunger strike in front of the Munich court room. The Barbie case has taken a national importance in France because another former Gestapo man is believed to have participated in the killing of Jean Moulin who served during the Nazi occupation of France as president of the National Council of Resistance Organizations.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
