Ailantha
  • Blog
  • About
  • Contact

The Mime And The Nazi

8/27/2020

0 Comments

 
Things are seldom what they seem.
Picture
"Hail Mary" by Patti Liszkay
Buy it on
 Amazon:

https://www.amzn.com/1684334888

​

​THE MIME AND THE NAZI

Picture
...Continued from yesterday:
     Years before Marcel Marceau achieved fame in the art of silence he was a member of the French Resistance during World War II who was fluent in French, German and English. After the Americans landed in France in 1944 he was recruited by the French army for his linguistic skills and assigned to the position of liaison officer with General George Patton's army. 
​    If the Americans were impressed with the young French liaison officer's talent for languages, they also took note of his genius for acting, and after the liberation of Paris Marceau was asked to entertain the troops. He  gave his first major pantomime performance in an army tent before an audience of 3,000 U.S. soldiers. And so Marcel Marceau,
who would go on to become the world's most famous mime, was first discovered by the United States army . 
      As it turned out, there was someone else  who was also discovered
around that same time by the American Army.
       After the war, among the Nazi war criminals being hunted by the French government was German SS officer Klaus Barbie, known as "The Butcher of Lyons" because of his cruel torture of Jewish adults and children and suspected members of the Resistance during the German occupation of France. 
​(See previous post, "Silent Hero").
Picture
    Klaus Barbie was directly responsible for the deaths of 14,000 people during World War II.
    Barbie was found in 1947, not by the French, but by the American army. However rather than  turn Klaus Barbie over to the French government, the U.S. Army Counterintelligence Corps decided to sign him on as an informer. Barbie was clandestinely  put up in a hotel in Germany and paid $1700  a month by the American Government to help gather information on Communist activity in Europe. In 1947 $1700 a month was a small fortune.  
    In 1950, after the French learned that that The Butcher of Lyons  was  being protected and paid by the Americans in Germany, the U.S. intelligence services, likely out of embarrassment, arranged with the help of the Vatican for Klaus Barbie to flee to Bolivia.  There he  went on to live and prosper greatly for 33 years, living a country club existence, traveling freely and occasionally visiting the United States, and doing business with drug cartels, dealing in arms, and serving as a collaborator with Bolivian government paramilitaries on how to most effectively use torture.
      For years France tried to extradite Klaus Barbie but the Bolivian government protected him, and it wasn't until 1983, by which time Barbie was well into old age, that he was returned to France to stand trial in Lyons for his crimes. 
      
   Barbie was finally sentenced in 1987 to life in prison and four years later he died of cancer at age 77 in prison in Lyons. Klaus Barbie never repented and until the day he died remained a proud Nazi and supporter of Adolph Hitler. “I am proud to have been a commanding officer of the best military outfit in the Third Reich," he said, "and if I had to be born a thousand times again, I would be a thousand times what I’ve been.” ​
Picture
 
     As for Marcel Marceau, who spent his life bringing joy and laughter to adults and children around the world.
Picture
...he had this to say about the choices he'd made in his life:
​      
"The people who came back from the [concentration] camps were never able to talk about it. My name is Mangel. I am Jewish. Perhaps that, unconsciously, contributed towards my choice of silence.
     "Among those kids (who were killed by the Nazis) was maybe an Einstein, a Mozart, somebody who (would have) found a cancer drug. That is why we have a great responsibility. Let us love one another."
References
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcel_Marceau


https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/mime-who-saved-kids-holocaust-180962533/

https://www.history.com/news/marcel-marceau-wwii-french-resistance-georges-loinger

https://www.nytimes.com/1991/09/26/world/klaus-barbie-77-lyons-gestapo-chief.html
​

https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/nikolaus-klaus-barbie-the-butcher-of-lyon

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klaus_Barbie
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Picture
    "Tropical Depression" 
    by Patti Liszkay
    ​Buy it on Amazon:

    https://www.amzn.com/1685131832

    Picture
    "Hail Mary"
    by Patti Liszkay
    Buy it on Amazon:

    https://www.amzn.com/1684334888

    Picture
    "Equal And Opposite Reactions"
     by Patti Liszkay
    Buy it on Amazon:

    http://amzn.to/2xvcgRa
    or from
    The Book Loft
    of German Village,
    Columbus, Ohio
    Picture
    Or check it out at the Columbus Metropolitan Library
    Picture

    Archives

    April 2023
    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013

    RSS Feed

    I am a traveler just visiting this planet and reporting various and sundry observations,
    hopefully of interest to my fellow travelers.

    Categories

    All


























































































Proudly powered by Weebly