All language subtitles for Nazi Hunters - Season 1, Episode 6 - Kurt Lischka

kurt liske was in charge of annihilating

a people

it was a death factory basically you

know it was a death factory

there was no will to bring the nazi

criminals to justice

the klarsfelds believe in action

we had to do something

there were plots in germany to kill us

nothing nothing nothing would stop them

[Music]

cologne west germany

political activists serge and vieta

clarksville stake out an apartment

building in a quiet neighborhood

it is home to nazi war criminal kurt

liska

[Music]

it is 100 liska's job to organize the

arrests deportation and their ferrying

of the jews east which of course is that

great nazi euphemism for exterminating

people in camps such as outfits

a legal loophole protects nazis like

liska from prosecution in germany the

klarsfelds are on a mission to change

the law and make lishker pay for his

crimes

we had learned that most of the nazi

criminals who had been active in the

deportation of the jews of france had

remained in germany under their own

names

we were very

outraged by the fact

that they became

judges

businessmen

higher officials

they wanted

to force the germans to see that they

had in their midst a major nazi criminal

the husband and wife team have traveled

from their home in paris to track down

the war criminal

vaata called information and cologne and

had no problem immediately getting

an address for kurt lishke

kurdish

you know it was as easy as this

for serge this isn't just about politics

a french jew he lost family in the

holocaust

we saw him leaving to go to work as an

accountant

[Music]

he was a businessman

but 30 years ago liska had a very

different job

as gestapo chief in paris he

orchestrated the murder of 33 000 jews

he sent out to paris where he heads up

the

the jewish affairs department and that

doesn't mean looking after jews that

means effectively

killing

them he organized

the arrest of jews in france

and their deportation to our sheets

and that's his job he's in charge of

annihilating a people after the war he

fall in the ends of

the czech authorities

they released him in 1950

he went back to live in germany and he

lived quietly with his family and try to

get on with the normal life

he was a prosperous

german businessman

it's extraordinary to think that someone

could have gone from exterminating

people to living this sort of upper

middle class life but that was the way

it was

in recent years liska has prospered he

is now a finance executive for a grain

shipping company in cologne

he was sending

grains exactly like jews he was sending

grains it's the same work as sending

jews

the next morning the klarsfelds are back

on liska street this time they've hired

a cameraman to try to capture the nazi

on film

club glassfield

maclaresvelts found out where he would

walk on his way to the streetcar he had

to take the streetcar to get to work in

cologne

is not scuttling under rocks lisker is

living very openly

and suddenly we saw a tall man he was

wearing a black coat carrying a

briefcase and was smoking a cigarette

serge said yes that's him

on glassville

it is the start of a dramatic cat and

mouse chase that will last almost nine

years

[Music]

we filmed liska when he went out from

his apartment

i started shooting him from one angle

to keep him in the frame as long as

possible

[Music]

so i started running too

i kept one eye on the street my right

eye was on the viewfinder trying to

focus on him when i'm so partisan

we didn't want to do something against

him but he believes that perhaps we will

he hid his face behind his briefcase

and you can see on the tape that he

glanced at me

[Music]

well they certainly became his worst

nightmare when in the famous footage you

see the great head of the gestapo of

paris

running like a squirrel being chased by

a dog

it was clear to me that this man was a

criminal you could tell by the way he

acted

[Music]

he was fearful of the truth that they

brought

it was the truth that was pursuing him

not the clars felts it was the truth of

his crimes

we shot until he got onto the streetcar

[Music]

and so we had a very good material of

nazi criminals running in the street

in colloid

the klarsfelds hope their film of liska

will help sway german public opinion

hunting down nazi war criminals has

become their life's work

he was this very intelligent intense

young lawyer and she was an au pair but

she had a very good brain serge sort of

opened up biata's eyes to what happened

during the war

bayata came to see that as a

german

it was her destiny with serge

to

force germany to look at its past

and their life since then has just been

one long

very very hardly fought campaign against

injustice

in germany especially the couple face

enormous obstacles

during this time

the german state networks and legal

apparatuses are still riddled with

people who are not that interested in

hunting nazis either because they

themselves have something about their

own past to hide or they know someone

in fact kurt liske has already been

convicted of war crimes not in germany

but in france in 1950 remarkably as long

as he stays in germany he's safe

people like liska were allowed to remain

free because there was no

framework agreed between the french and

germans and how to get some of these

criminals into france to be tried

[Music]

the klarsfelds want to shame germany

into adopting a new law one that will

punish war criminals like liska

[Music]

they released their film to the media

which

were shown in many tv all over the

germany and

western world

but the public outrage they're hoping

for never comes

nothing happened there was silence

and i said you know you have to react

frustrated with government inertia the

klarsfelds decide on a more radical move

the class belts in their typical fashion

decide that there's only one thing to do

with lishke and that's not to write

letters to members of parliament or

lawyers is to take direct action these

are children the 60s after all and they

liked a stage are happening

we decided that we will try to kidnap

him in order to bring him back to france

they're going to take him back to france

and then present him to the french

authorities and go right there do

something about it

the idea that they would try to kidnap

an ex-gestapo chief

it was mind-blowing it really was

but to carry out their audacious plan

they need help

eli is a photographer whose mother died

in auschwitz

marco is a friend from university

and david is a doctor

whose judo skills may prove useful

[Music]

and we told them

are you ready to come with us and we

explain the case

and they say yes

none of them were prepared

emotionally or physically and i think it

was only sergi's very

strong persuasive personality that got

them on board in the first

biata place their recruits on lishka's

daily routine

she has spent days in cologne spying on

him he left in the morning to go to his

business and then coming back at noon

for a lunch at home and going back to

his office

but

we understood that it will not be easy

we knew if we will succeed we will bring

him

in front of the ministry of police in

paris

if we do not succeed it will be a case

which will mobilize public opinion in

germany

the team travels to cologne

they rehearse the abduction and finalize

last-minute details

but the plan hits a snag when the rental

car they've booked isn't available

they want to rent a car

they've been promised they'll get a

certain type which has four doors and

when they arrive the car has only got

two doors

a two-door car is the worst type of car

you can imagine trying to bundle someone

into

especially someone very tall like liska

you can't just shove them in

it's the first sign of trouble

the day of the kidnap

the team moves into position

i was you know a volunteer in the

israeli army in 67 so

i was not afraid by the action

the idea was

once they had stuffed lishka into the

trunk they would drive out to the

outskirts of

cologne and transfer him to another

rented car so that they couldn't be

spotted or identified along the way back

to france

[Music]

[Music]

they understood that it was now the

moment to get to go after him you know

[Music]

[Music]

they had the plan

what they didn't have were the personnel

who could really carry it out somebody

really to thwonk lishka hard on the head

they're not exactly professional

kidnappers

[Music]

at the critical moment eli loses his

nerve and freezes

[Music]

[Music]

i don't think they wanted to

go back to france saying uh we just

we didn't have the courage to carry out

our plan so having failed once maybe

that bolstered their

courage

in a nearby cafe

saras rallies his troops

he reminds them why they're here

kurt liska and hundreds of nazis like

him must face justice

the situation was the same situation for

all the nazi criminals who

acted in france

and we wanted to change that situation

[Music]

for stairs in the back of his mind were

the the screams and the moans of

children who first were

subjected to

terrible arrest

[Music]

[Applause]

then to an inhuman trip to auschwitz

and finally

to the gas chamber

and

liska

more than anyone else

was

central to that happening in france

in may 1942 liska decreed that all jews

over the age of six were the yellow star

of david two months later he ordered the

largest mass arrest in french history

thousands of jews were arrested

during the great roundup of the

velodrome diver

on july 16 1942

thirteen thousand jews among them four

thousand children

more than half of the victims rounded up

that day died at outfits

if it wouldn't be for the fact that we

were not arrested on that day

i would never have seen my 13th birthday

simon jerukum was only saved through the

quick action of his father and mother

she took it upon herself to walk to a

cleaning woman who lived in a

neighborhood not very far

and she

begged her to have if we could just stay

overnight in her house

i remember that moment because i was

looking at my mother and i still feel to

this day i remember i felt embarrassed

that my mother was crying in front of a

stranger and all we were told you're

going to be placed with farmers they

will not know you're jewish you'll have

to pretend you're catholic

i love the house and that's the last

time i saw them

that was the very last time

i feel

that part of myself

was in a way arrested

and i share the fate of all those who

were arrested and disappeared

serge is determined to make the nazi

murderer pay a price

[Music]

[Music]

at 12 45 pm he leads a second kidnap

attempt

[Music]

so they go up to liska

and in the street this very tall guy

we

came close to him

one took

one hand one arm another one took a

second arm

he's shocked i mean as you would be if

just some random bloke came and jumped

out at you

and he was very heavy and it was very

difficult to push him and he started to

to shout her heal for hilfer

help help

[Music]

hits him again and liska sort of

collapses to the ground not unconscious

at all but just you know a little bit

dazed and stunned

he were beating him he went down on the

ground

we were shouting

they then try to manhandle this into the

car

and at this point the things go very

badly wrong for the team

[Music]

a policeman has suddenly spotted them

[Music]

[Music]

[Applause]

we ran to the car in order to escape the

policemen

[Music]

lisk is shouting i want my hat i want my

hat and that's all lisker and the

policeman seem to be worried about

it it's sort of high fast almost

we

left for france and beaten remained

behind

because she was on the other part of the

street

we knew that she could come back to by

herself

i don't think they really thought they

were going to

cross the border into france with liska

in the trunk of the car

but they knew they were going to cause

embarrassment

to the authorities

the clarksvilles don't have their man

but they hope the bungled abduction will

hit the headlines

to their disappointment

the following day

there is barely a mention

[Music]

it was very few in the next day a small

article that a man was attacked in the

street

so we called the newspapers they are too

cold like she if she was a neighbor of

liska

how is it possible that nothing is

written

while

this poor mr liska was

put on the ground and attacked by

foreigners

i said you know this were french jews

who came to uh to kidnap the former

police the shivers extrapo in france

the next day

it was full of

news because the police was obliged to

say that yes there was an attempt of

kidnapping

pieta decides to go one step further she

returns to cologne and claims

responsibility for the crime so the

police came and she

presented herself

as one of the

kidnappers

so immediately beaten say i organized

that

attempt of kidnapping because germany

doesn't want to

ratify the treaty between france and

germany and kurtishka was our first

attempt

the police didn't want to arrest her

they understood something was happening

here

which was an effective manipulation of

the police

if germany won't put a mass murderer

behind bars then biata will sacrifice

her own freedom

[Music]

march 31st 1971

piatta clarksfeld is back in cologne

she wants to force the authorities to

act against the former gestapo chief of

paris

it's one thing just to say he was head

of this department in paris during the

war but you've also got to have a paper

trail and you've got to show quite what

this man has done and you've got to show

bits of paper with his name and initials

on and so on

[Music]

part of the

documents concerning the jews

had remained here in france when the

german retired

we had a very solid and heavy file

against ishka

[Music]

as they read the documentation of the

deportation period

his name was just all over

every telex to eichmann and berlin

he was what they call the death murder

my parents they were actually trying to

go to

the

non-occupied what they call the free

zone

and they were arrested on the border

and

they were sent immediately to auschwitz

so they were actually guests in

september

i mean just a month and a half after

we're separated

thinking of them being so young

they were in the early 40s you know

i didn't want to think about the

suffering this is too much for me to

imagine

it was

intolerable to them

that criminals of that level should go

on unrevenged

justice had to be meted out to lishka

in the company of holocaust survivors

biata delivers their dossier on liska

to the prosecutor in cologne

we met the prosecutor of zeldiska case

and delivered him the documents and i

said you know here i am i say to you we

wanted to kidnap

we could not succeed but

i bring in anyway his the file about him

piata deliberately presents the

prosecutor

with a dilemma

if he will arrest beater that will make

a mobilization among the victims

and if he will not arrest beater

it will show that

the german justice is unable to arrest

people who act illegally like the nazi

criminals

the best situation for the clarksville's

was

that

liske would continue to go about his

normal life

and bayata would be thrown in jail

now the authorities do act they don't

arrest liska they are sbr to glasfeld

[Music]

biata spends the next two weeks in

osendorf prison

and every moment of that time was well

worth it to the klarsfelds because

it embarrassed the official powers

this young woman is in jail and this top

nazi is walking around

beaten and i decided to oblige the

german parliament to make a law giving

the possibility to judge these

criminals

but serge knows that shaming politicians

may not be enough

[Music]

there were powerful men of course

against such a low and giving the

possibility to judge nazi criminals in

germany

[Music]

there was no appetite in germany

to go around soul searching by you know

arresting people like liska and bring

them to trial there was just no demand

for it

the injustice of biata's incarceration

becomes a cars celeb

all the newspapers in france

made

huge articles

there are massive protests organized by

serge you know free biata

without any powers of their own other

than their own courage

it's amazing to think that they found

ways to use the press to affirm their

moral position

the authorities caved to public pressure

and released pieta on bail

[Music]

they upped the ante

they dramatized justice and

[Music]

injustice but for the clarksvilles the

harder they fight to bring nazis to

justice the more danger they face from

those determined to stop them

[Music]

one day in their paris apartment they

had um received a parcel seemingly full

of chocolates from ron mara

it was sent

by somebody called seagull

a jewish name but the initial of the

first name and the name were ss

search was very suspicious

sausage opened carefully the

the paper and inside was a box of candy

and in the paper there's

some

black grains

luckily the

beater and the children were away

a

box of candy which in fact was a bomb

had been sent to them

so i took the parcel to the police

so he put it in a plastic shopping bag

and walked it down to the police station

and one of his friends said hey what do

you got in there serge and he goes hey

i've got a bomb

and the police examine it and they say

you are lucky to be alive

[Music]

they discovered 300 grams of dynamite

and 500 grams of nails

this is half a kilo of high explosives

that would have just torn you the flat

completely to bits so indeed the class

belts are very lucky

there were plots by extreme rightists in

germany to kill us

they

put their lives their bodies

on the line willingly

these are threats

we took them seriously but we

never stop

[Music]

may 1973 vieta ups the ante again

seven months pregnant and flanked by

auschwitz survivors she marches into

lishka's office to stage a protest

she was never frightened she was never

ever frightened

now confronted by his accusers the

modern business executive reveals his

true gestapo colors

[Music]

he took a gun

to put one of the

demonstrators

against the wall

did he hate the klarsfelds

he certainly was fearful of them

he wouldn't have done this

without the fact that he was afraid

being punished

slowly slowly with our demonstrative

actions we put pressure on the gem

societies

the glasfelts are really savvy

manipulators and they knew how to

present a really good image to the

public

they wanted germany to

deal with liske

that was our

strategy

himself was a child of the holocaust

i believe he was eight years old when

his father was taken away

it was september 1943

the gestapo burst into serge's home

he along with his sister and mother

hid in a secret compartment inside their

closet

and they started to look for us and one

german opened the door of the closet and

he put all the side all the

clothes

like that but he didn't touch

the wood

[Music]

and in the morning when the germans were

no more there we

escaped

the young surge didn't know what had

happened to his father

we phoned

to the german prosecutor saying you know

if you do nothing in order to judge

these criminals one day somebody will

come with an armed weapon and kill this

guy

despite the pressure there is still no

movement among german lawmakers

in december 1973 three years after their

hunt began

serge can wait no longer

he will take the log into his own hands

[Music]

serge

traveled alone

with a pistol

to cologne

i knew that

the threat of killing nazi criminals

will not be believed until we would show

it effectively

[Music]

if he couldn't get

justice through the court system

he would finally have to administer

justice himself

i waited liska to go out from his office

to go to his car when he arrived to his

car i

by surprise arrived with a gun

serge

took that pistol and

shoved it in his face

he was shouting and afraid

i

put the gun on his

head

muscular's eyes bulged out

he immediately believed that he will be

killed

just like his victims 30 years earlier

kurt liska is forced to stare death in

the face

one of those victims was sergi's father

arnold clarksville

like thousands of other french jews he

was deported on the gestapo chief's

orders

he was sent to

auschwitz

he survived until august 1944

and then he died

liska was the single major figure in the

murder of french jews who was still

alive and still could be punished and if

no one else was going to do it then he

would do it

i decided that

i did not survive for

nothing

leshke thought he was about to die

i decided not to kill because

that would be an act of despair

i didn't shoot i smiled i laughed

and i

left running

shoving a revolver

between the eyes of kurt liske

was a symbolic

murder this was his way of saying

we want justice we don't want revenge

[Music]

it's are shed back to paris and again

then we top phones

to the german prosecutors

i told them you see if we want to kill

these criminals we can even with a gun

even protected

and it will happen if you do not do your

duty

eventually after much turning and

throwing and a lot of pressure from the

class belts eventually the law is passed

we've obtained finally the ratification

it was done in january 1975.

five years after their campaign began

the new law is enacted

it is dubbed the clarsfeld law in

recognition of their tireless effort

but their fight is far from over

lishka and other nazi criminals must now

be brought to judgment

we were

leading a war against these nazi

criminals

they had found a way to use their own

ingenuity

their own

courage their own lack of fear about

what might happen to them to accomplish

great things

[Music]

july 1978 two years after the

clarksville law was passed german police

arrest kirk liska for the murder of 33

000 french jews

i think the most important was that this

man we had confronted before

at this time never thought that one day

they would be

judged

so

it became possible to have a trial in

cologne

at that time we were very very happy

the forthcoming trial stirs up a real

hornet's nest of neo-nazi activity

against the claws

during the night

we heard an explosion and

dad told me what it is i believe it's

our car

in the garage at the bottom of the

apartment block where the class felts

live the car is blown to pieces by a car

bomb

subsequent investigations revealed that

the car bomb was intended to go off when

serge was driving his daughter to school

so this was actually act of attempted

murder

it says so much the bravery of the class

felt so that doesn't stop them

if you are obsessed with security you

you cannot do anything

october 23rd 1979

the kurt lishka trial opens

even though lishken have been brought to

trial that the class wills don't end it

there i mean they never say never they

decide the best way to help impress upon

the german public the severity of the

crimes he's being tried for

they have a lot of former french

concentration camp inmates turning up

wearing their concentration camp

uniforms with this yellow star of david

on it

also on trial for war crimes orliska's

deputy ernst heinrichsen and herbert

hagen a high-ranking ss leader in

wartime france

they brought in the three

defendants

and put them at kind of a fenced-in area

they look like three

businessmen they had looks on their

faces like

oh

why are you doing this to us you know

what what is this all about we're not

criminals

for the verdict the klarsfelds pull one

last stunt they charter a special train

from france carrying 1500

it was the trains and the cattle wagons

that took the jews eastwards from france

through germany and to to the

extermination camps this train was seen

as a highly symbolic act of bringing a

train of jews french jews into germany

for the trial

[Music]

it was a big march through the streets

of cologne the youngsters were staying

outside and shouting

murder

french jews who had been

powerless

suddenly felt yes we

we are a people

nine years after the clarksvilles first

staked out kurt lishker's apartment

all three defendants are found guilty

i think uh catching those murderers

is something that

people like myself is here for my

generation would feel a great deal of

i wouldn't say the word joy you know

justice had been served in some ways

nobody would ever have

identified

the principles of the final solution in

france

if it weren't for the clarksville

[Music]

and ishka was sentenced to ten years of

jail

although lisker is sentenced for ten

years he in fact only serves five years

and he's released in the mid-1980s on

groundswill health and uh and he dies in

a nursing home

the leash catwall was for us a trial of

those who

lived unpunished in germany during more

than 30 years

and eventually were sentenced by a new

germany

with our work we obliged them to do

something what they didn't want

it's very hard to

to imagine the depth of commitment of

this couple they were bonded together in

a commitment

unto death if that's what it took

the crimes are never forgotten the very

end these criminals can be judged for

the crimes he had committed

[Music]

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you