Serge and Beate Klarsfeld
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Serge (born September 17, 1935 in Bucharest, Romania) and Beate (born February 13, 1939 in Berlin, Germany) Klarsfeld are called "Nazi hunters" for bringing Klaus Barbie and others to justice. Their major role in the trial of a former cabinet minister is now making headlines.
Serge is a Jew whose father died at Auschwitz. Beate was born Beate Kunzel in Berlin during the height of Nazi Germany. The daughter of a Wehrmacht soldier, she first learned of the horrors of the holocaust after moving to France in 1960. Serge and Beate were married in 1963.
Beate first gain international attention when she slapped West German Chancellor Kurt Georg Kiesinger in 1968. Kiesinger had been a member of the Nazi party during World War II and had worked in the propaganda department of the foreign ministry.
The Klarsfelds also campaigned against Kurt Waldheim, an ex Nazi and SA officer who had been elected President of Austria in 1986. The campaign by the Klarsfelds and others caused most western nations to shun Waldheim during his term in office.
The Klarsfelds were the targets of a much publicized car bombing at their home in France on July 9, 1979. No one was in the car when the bomb went off and no one was injured in the blast. The ODESSA organization took credit for the attack and demanded that they stop pursuing Nazi.
However, not only have they continued to devote themselves to catching the perpetrators of Nazi terror, but also to remembering their victims.
The Klarsfeld's anti Nazi campaign was dramatized in a 1986 film entitled Nazi Hunter: The Beate Klarsfeld Story starring Farrah Fawcett as Beate and Tom Conti as Serge.