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Telegraph Obituary

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?view=DETAILS&grid=&xml=/news/2007/03/16/db1602.xm l

While in no way wishing to detract from her achievements, there appear to be some doubts as to the true story of the war period.

You can't be me, I'm taken

by Sven Triloqvist on Fri Mar 16th, 2007 at 08:39:22 AM EST

While in no way wishing to detract from her achievements

That obituary is a smear job, clearly suggesting that she (of her husband) is a traitor. Nice.

She's a commie and French, that's triple plus evil.

In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes

by Jerome a Paris (jeromeguillet@yahoo.fr) on Fri Mar 16th, 2007 at 09:03:03 AM EST
[ Parent ]
I don't want to engage in a discussion of this, cause I don't know the facts. I saw something in the media, and I passed it on. I thought ET was a place where we clarify facts, not make them holy.

You can't be me, I'm taken
by Sven Triloqvist on Fri Mar 16th, 2007 at 10:15:52 AM EST
[ Parent ]
but the article, which is quite neddlessly nasty and partisan for an obituary.

In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
by Jerome a Paris (jeromeguillet@yahoo.fr) on Fri Mar 16th, 2007 at 11:06:08 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Obituaries in The Independent and The Times do not go into the Barbie/Vergès/Chauvy smear. The Guardian does, in a more balanced way than The Telegraph.

Obituaries are generally by people who have some knowledge of the deceased or her/is life and times, and for that reason they are often signed. The first three linked to above are signed, the Torygraph one doesn't seem to be.

When locusts move on, they leave nothing behind

by afew (afew(a in a circle)eurotrib_dot_com) on Fri Mar 16th, 2007 at 02:58:13 PM EST
[ Parent ]
The whole accusation comes from Gérard Chauvy's book written in a few months in 1997 to benefit from the popularity of the movie (it was published at the same time). This accusation had never been mentioned before. Chauvy based his book on the "testament" of Klaus  Barbie, head of the Gestapo in Lyon.

Klaus Barbie, after having collaborated with the US secret services, had took refuge in Bolivia, where, under the name of Klaus Altman, he worked as a "consultant" for the police of the dictatorship. Spotted in 1971 by Beate and Serge Klarsfeld, Barbie was formally identified by... Raymond Aubrac! In 1983, after the fall of the Bolivian dictatorship, Barbie was extradited to France.

Klaus Barbie's trial was held in 1987 and he was condemned to life imprisonment for crimes against humanity. His counsel was Jacques Vergès, a very famous lawyer. He helped Barbie to write his "testament" in which he accused many resistance fighters to be traitors and especially Raymond and Lucie Aubrac. Knowing that, given the facts, Barbie would be condemned, Jacques Vergès wanted to bring discredit upon the Resistance.  No other document nor witness had so far mentioned this, and no one since... Interestingly, Vergès did not mention this accusation during Barbie's trial, not even when Raymond Aubrac testified at Vergès request! But he disseminated it in the press and on the TV...

FYI, Jacques Vergès started by defending very courageously the Algerian freedom fighters from the FLN during the Algerian war. However, among the people he has defended since then are dictators Omar Bongo, Denis Sassou-Nguesso, Slobodan Milosevic and Saddam Hussein,  the terrorist Carlos, the revisionist Roger Garaudy and Khieu Samphan, leader of the Red Khmers...

The so-called "jury" mentioned by the Telegraph was a "round table" organised by the French newspaper Libération, which was held with a surprising lack of rigour. It was denounced by a great number of historians.  

Here is good debunking by an historian (in French)


"Ne te courbe que pour aimer..." René Char

by Melanchthon on Fri Mar 16th, 2007 at 10:25:37 AM EST
[ Parent ]
BTW, Gérard Chauvy has been condemned twice for libel...


"Ne te courbe que pour aimer..." René Char
by Melanchthon on Fri Mar 16th, 2007 at 10:27:30 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Thanks! That was the point - for it to be debunked ;-)

You can't be me, I'm taken
by Sven Triloqvist on Fri Mar 16th, 2007 at 10:54:22 AM EST
[ Parent ]

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