For Justice: The Serge and Beate Klarsfeld Story

Part love story, part thriller, Bresson and Dorange’s moving account of Nazi hunters Serge and Beate Klarsfeld makes a strong case for holding leaders and high-ranking bad actors accountable regardless of how much time has passed since their crimes. Serge, the son of a French Holocaust victim, meets Beate, a young German woman, in a Paris train station in 1960. He becomes an attorney and she a journalist, and soon they are working together to bring to justice Nazis who are living freely in Europe and South America. Their white whale is Klaus Barbie, who signed orders that allowed 44 Jewish French children to be executed at the Drancy concentration camp. They track Barbie to Bolivia, where he is coaching the Bolivian military in torture techniques, amply proving that their obsessions are worthy when Barbie is arrested and ultimately sentenced to life in prison. It can be hard to keep the Klarsfelds’ many targets and trials straight, but pointy-nosed Beate and pompadoured Serge are riveting heroes, whom Dorange styles against a modish and earth-toned backdrop. “Human nature gives us a terrible perspective on the infinite capacity of the ‘civilized’ man to do evil,” Serge reflects. This skillful graphic biography offers timely perspective. [em](Jan.) [/em]