Holocaust, Résistance, Colonial Atrocities. Conflicts of Memory in the Trial of Klaus Barbie, Lyon 1987
The dissertation project takes the first French trial for crimes against humanity as its starting point. The trial, which opened in May 1987 before the Assize Court of the Rhône department in Lyon, concerned Klaus Barbie, former head of the Gestapo in Lyon from 1942 to 1944. He was charged with the torture, murder, and deportation of members of the French Resistance as well as thousands of Jews. Following the Second World War, Barbie fled to Bolivia, where he was, among other activities, involved in efforts to suppress Ernesto »Che« Guevara’s guerrilla movement. It was not until 1983 that he was ultimately extradited to France. In July 1987, Barbie was sentenced to life imprisonment.
The project aims to shed light on the conflicting memories of the Holocaust, the Résistance and colonial crimes that became evident in France’s handling of Barbie. In the 1940s and 1950s, the »butcher of Lyon,« as he was infamously known, had already been convicted in absentia of war crimes committed against members of the Résistance. However, under French law, these crimes had become statute-barred by the 1980s. This is one reason why in the 1980s, the indictment initially focused on Barbie’s crimes against Jews. But Résistance groups took legal action to have his fight against the anti-fascist Resistance also classified as crimes against humanity. Furthermore, the memory of France’s colonial history came into play during the trial: Because of its unpunished colonial crimes, Barbie’s French defense attorney Jacques Vergès, an icon of the anti-colonial struggle, challenged France’s authority to judge a Nazi perpetrator in the name of humanity.
In the dissertation project, this problem area will be addressed primarily via Jewish protagonists of the Barbie trial. Among them are Serge Klarsfeld, who acted as a lawyer for joint plaintiffs, and the witness Michel Cojot-Goldberg, whose father had been deported under Barbie. These protagonists offer a vantage point from which to gain new insight into the contentious dynamics of French memory conflicts.
Contact:
Annika Padoan
