Beate Klarsfeld

In Nazi-occupied France in 1941, four-year-old Ruth Kapp learns that it is dangerous to use her own name. "Remember," her older cousin Jeannette warns her, "your name is Renee and you are French!" A deeply personal book, this true story recounts the chilling experiences of a young Jewish girl during the Holocaust. The Kapp family flees one home after another, helped by simple, ordinary people from the French countryside who risk their lives to protect them. Eventually the family is forced to separate, and young Ruth survives the war in an orphanage where she is not allowed to see or even mention her parents. Without the trappings of lofty language or the faceless perspective of history, this first-person account poignantly recreates the terror of war seen through the eyes of an innocent child. Your Name Is Renee is a tale of suffering and redemption, fear and hope.

They were born on opposite sides of the Second World War: Beate grew up in the ruins of a defeated Weimar Germany, while Serge, a Jewish boy in France, was hiding in a cupboard when his father was arrested and sent to Auschwitz. They met on the Paris métro and fell in love, and became famous when Beate slapped the face of the West German chancellor - a former Nazi - Kurt Georg Kiesinger. For the past half century, Beate and Serge Klarsfeld have hunted, confronted, prosecuted, and exposed Nazi war criminals all over the world, tracking down the notorious torturer Klaus Barbie in Bolivia and attempting to kidnap the former Gestapo chief Kurt Lischka on the streets of Cologne. They have been sent to prison for their beliefs and have risked their lives protesting anti-Semitism behind the Iron Curtain in South America and in the Middle East. They have been insulted and exalted, assaulted and heralded; they’ve received honors from presidents and letter bombs from neo-Nazis. They have fought relentlessly not only for the memory of all those who died in the Holocaust but also for modern-day victims of genocide and discrimination across the world. And they have done it all while raising their children and sustaining their marriage. Now, for the first time, in Hunting the Truth, a major memoir written in their alternating voices, Beate and Serge Klarsfeld tell the thrilling story of a lifetime dedicated to combating evil.

Wahrend der deutschen Besatzung Frankreichs wurden von dort rund 76.000 Juden in die Vernichtungslager deportiert, darunter uber 11.000 Kinder, die nach dem Transport sofort ermordet wurden. Etwa 800 dieser Kinder stammten aus Deutschland und Osterreich. Von dort waren sie mit ihren Eltern vor den Nationalsozialisten nach Frankreich geflohen. Mit grossem Engagement haben Beate und Serge Klarsfeld alle verfugbaren Informationen uber diese Kinder zusammengetragen, um an ihr Schicksal zu erinnern und sie vor dem Vergessen zu bewahren. Es finden sich Briefe der Kinder an ihre Eltern und Freunde, teilweise in Handschrift, und andere Dokumente wie Kopien von Reisepassen, Deportationslisten oder Zeitungsartikel. Viele Lebenslaufe lassen sich so gut dokumentieren. Neben Lebensdaten, Herkunftsort der Kinder und Nummer ihres Transports blicken uns auf etwa 200 Fotos ihre Gesichter an. Mit diesem Buch soll an das Leben der ermordeten Kinder erinnert werden. Es hebt sie aus der anonymen Masse der Opfer heraus und macht sie wieder als Individuen sichtbar.Ein Vorwort von Serge Klarsfeld leitet das Buch ein. Es folgen die rekonstruierbaren Lebenslaufe von 163 Kindern mit Fotos und anderen Dokumenten sowie eine vollstandige Liste der ermittelten Kinder.