THE WOMAN WHO AVENGED THE CHILDREN OF IZIEU

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000100370005-7
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 28, 2010
• Sequence Number: 5
• Publication Date: January 22, 1984
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/06/28: CIA-RDP90-00552R000100370005-7
ARTICLE APPEAR
ON P,&IQE4
ing on the top of
a hill in the vil-
lage of lzieu, 50
miles cast of Lyons, France. In the attic,
which ran the length of the house, was a
classroom with several battered desks,
long wooden tables, two blackboards
and children's drawings pasted up on
the walls. Except for a farm next door,
there were few neighbors. Firewood and
food weredelivered once a week. There
were no visitors. This was occupied
France in 1944, and in this house 41
Jewish children were hidden away from
the Nazi terror that surrounded them.
Thursday, April 6, was a warm day-
no clouds, bright sun. At 7:30 a.m.,
two canvas-covered trucks ground their
way up the steep hill and roared into the
courtyard, disgorging eight German S.S.
men and two men in overcoats with
wide-brimmed hats, one of whom was
clearly in command. Two witnesses have
identified him as S.S. Obersturmfuhrer
Klaus Barbie, head of the Gestapo's
dreaded Department IV in Lyons. Most
Awn
PARADE
22 January 1984
Wo-.. m- an--
BY BARBARA GOLD-SMITH i
-
home was a two-
of
the ahilai en were in the dining hal
-and jam when the S.S: men broke in.
:Aiming machine guns at the children,
they forced them into the trucks in the
courtyard. Then the men ransacked the
house, -becoming increasingly angry at
the paucity of the children's possessions.
Several more children were discovered
hiding underatableinthe attic classroom.
The school doctor leaped from the
second-story window and escaped into
the woods amid bursts of gunfire. In the
confusion, one small boy began racing
across the courtyard, but the soldiers
grabbed him .and beat him with rifle
butts. Blood streamed from his nose as
he was thrown into the truck.
- The last child, a blond,, ringleted bojl
of 3, too terrified to walk, was carried
into the truck. Julien Favet, a farmworker
who happened to be passing by, was
held at gunpoint while the arrests were
going on. He remembers, "I couldn't
do anything. Machine guns covered
everyone. Most of the children were
crying, a few were bravely singing. -1
knew it was finished for them."
The children of Izieu were taken to
the cellar of the Fort Montluc Prison in
Lyons. Klaus Barbie dispatched a tele-
gram to Gestapo headquarters in Paris:
Subject: The Jewish children's home in
Izieu. In the earl, morning hours the
Jewish children'shome "The Children's
Colony" in Izieu was terminated A
total of 41 children from 3-13 in age
were removed ...Cash or any other kind r
of possessions could not be secured.
Transport to Drancy is arranged on
A
il 7
pr
, 19,44.
BARBIE, S.S. OB
In less than five months, Paris would
be liberated. This was a time when it
was difficult to move troops or essential
warsupplies, but Klaus Barbie arranged
the very next morning forthe cattle can
that would take the children to the tran-
sit camp of Drancy on the first leg of
their journey to Auschwitz and death in
the gas chambers.
The slaughter of innocents is a sub-
ject so horrible that the mind rjects it.
Buried, the evil festers and must be
purged-or so feels one woman, Beate
Klarsfeld, who has devoted her life to
searching out Nazi war criminals and
bringing them to justice. Beate Klars-
feld is almost single-handedly responsi-
ble for bringing Klaus Barbie, the infa-
mous "Butcher of Lyons," to trial for
his Crimes Against Humanity, which
include not only those committed against
,the children of Izieu but the torture,
deportation and murder of thousands of
others as well.
STAT
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/06/28: CIA-RDP90-00552R000100370005-7