24 Friday, February 25, 1983 THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS Seven Jews were awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor during the Civil War. France on Trial With Case of Klaus Barbie raised fundamental ques- tions about the nature and purpose of legal justice. Americans are predis- posed to discuss justice either in the abstract or in individual terms. In the abstract, it would seem that By REV. FRANKLIN LITTELL Party CARICATURES by Chuck Borshanian 535-5340 The National Institute on the Holocaust PHILADELPHIA — The jailing and extradition of Klaus Barbie, "the Butcher of Lyons," from Bolivia has vps VIDEO PROFILES- CORPORATION Complete Broadcast Color Videotape Productions HAVE A MOVING EXPERIENCE And Still Enjoy Your Party Any Event • Any Subject • Any Occasion CALL 354-0438 TALK TO A VIDEOGRAPHER Personal Video Services rim as am as IN 1 lee •• sip am EN • is es ow 1m sr Nu am • Ns Gael mi NM MP NI Me • VALUABLE COUPON 1 .1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 I I 23043 Beech at 9 Mile, Southfield 31555 W. 10 Mile at Orchard Lake, Farmington I Sue No ma als Coupon must be presented with order — Expires March 11th ■ Il •11 so • 01 es • um me el. is Ns g= NE MI sr la =I es we Visiting Israel Should Be A Family Affair 1 JNF FOREST MIVTZA ELEF Work in the forests of the Galilee or Negev Live in an absorption center (Operation 1000) Makes It Possible For You. 2 AGRICULTURAL WORK Work on a moshav in the orchards or fields Live in an absorption center A rare opportuni to spend one month in Israel this summer 3 KIBBUTZ- STYLE LIVING Experience the varied workday of kitibutZ Live in regional dormitories MIVTZA ELEF offers North American Jewish families the chance to spend one month in Israel in either July or August on one of seven diverse programs in all corners of the State. All programs are heavily subsidized to make MIVTZA ELEF affordable for your family. Come meet your family ... fall in love with your land, and, bring the children. For further Information contact 6 WAREHOUSES OF TZAHAL Assist the army in civilian work. Live in absorption center I■ ISRAEL 7)CIEP7 TY1T3 CENTER 4 SETTLEMENTS IN JUDEA & SAMARIA Join the new pioneers settling Diets Yisrael 5 YARCHEI KALLAH Learn Torah in a Yeshiva or Institute of Jewish Learning. Dormitory accommodations 7 KNOW-ISRAEL TOURS Home-base for a month of touring will be a beautiful recreation village All Programs will include • Mini-Ulpan (basic Hebrew course) • Lectures, workshops • "Routes to Roots" trips to historical sites • Meetings with colleagues in your profession • Special programs for teenagers and children All programs will be well-supervised. Counsellors will be available for every group. or call toll-free (outside New York) 1-800-221-1251 PLAN NOW TO SPEND ONE MONTH OF THE SUMMER OF 1983 WITH YOUR FAMILY IN ISRAEL nothing that can be done will balance the injustice done those who were tor- mented and transported under Barbie's administra- tion. In the individual case, where questions of rehabili- tation are generally consid- ered important, we have ac- quired the insight that "jus- tice long delayed is not jus- tice." But there is another di- mension to justice besides the theoretical and the in- dividual, a dimension which we tend to neglect: the im- portance of signal trial and punishment as an educative force in society. Society needs to maintain and enforce principles of justice, including punishments commensurate with the crimes committed, to in- hibit those who may be tempted to act in like man- ner. Enforced justice is a barrier against the constant pressures to reduce human interactions to the law of the jungle. That the French authorities who suc- ceeded in extraditing Barbie have an under- standing of this neces- sary social dimension of justice seems promised by the announcement that he will be re-tried. He was tried in absentia during the war crimes trials after World War II, fourid guilty and con- demned to death. But for the educative issue, the prior sentences should be carried out with as much dispatch as possible. Israel's trial, judgment and execution of Eichmann was a sign to the nations. It was also a powerful educa- tive force for younger people, to whom the stories of the Holocaust and its per- petrators were already be- coming theater rather than historical fact. France's re-trial of Barbie may serve an even larger purpose for the French people: to help them face the facts of their own complicity in the triumph of the Third Reich — for a season — over most of European Chris- tendom. In spite of some splendid isolated incidents, such as the letter of the French Bishops condemning anti- Semitism or the superb film "The Sorrow and the Pity," the French nation has not faced honestly the facts of French complicity in the rise of Hitler, the temporary triumph of Nazism and the desolation of European Jewry. They have culti- vated the myth of wide- spread resistance. The brute fact is that more non-Jewish Ger- mans died fighting Hitler than Frenchmen. The brute fact is that a little heroic band of Jewish youth in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising held up the massed forces of crack German troops longer than the whole French army. The brute fact is that Hitler was helped to his early triumphs by French rightists: "Rather Hitler than Leon Blum!" Barbie's extradition to suc- The brute fact is that ceed. The German Federal some Frenchmen, col- laborating with the Nazi oc- Republic also wanted cupation, outperformed him. But it is well that the even the German require- French won out: the ments in persecuting and French people now have transporting Jews. The their chance to deal hon- brute fact is that anti- estly with obscured — in Semitism, unpurged and a number of cases delib- unrepented, has been in erately obscured — pages France a major force in the of its recent history. If Klaus Barbie's re-trial unholy alliance of leftist and rightist parties defam- is carried through honestly and openly, one of the major ing Israel. If the re-trial of Klaus purposes of justice will be Barbie can lead to a tough served. Let us hope that the re-examination of recent case will not be lost in the French history by Fren- clouds of theoretical justice. Let us hope that the crim- chmen, and result in a purg- ing of the malaise which has inal will not escape just and poisoned French politics true judgment, as some- since the Dreyfus case, then times happens with "Thief- a major purpose of justice on-the-Cross" "conversions" ("born-again" Christians!) will be served. There is another aspect to in societies which forget the Barbie case which that the purpose of justice is should not be forgotten. As social as well as individual. long as Bolivia remained a The Jew Leonino Da Zara fascist-governed country, was an Italian aviation Klaus Barbie had a secure pioneer. haven. It was the return of 474-8084 Bolivia to civilian govern- Bonded ment, the start of an inter- Norman G. Lebowitz nal renewal of democratic Detective Agency ideals and practices, which Domestic - Civil - Confidential made it possible for one of Licensed -- 19456 Deering the governments seeking P.D. 013 Livonia, MI 48152 TOTAL IMAGE FOR MEN ON THE BOARDWALK Orchard Lake Rd. 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