17 Facts About Serge Klarsfeld

Serge Klarsfeld was born on 17 September 1935 and is a Romanian-born French activist and Nazi hunter known for documenting the Holocaust in order to establish the record and to enable the prosecution of war criminals.

Serge Klarsfeld married Beate Kunzel in 1963 and settled in Paris.

Serge Klarsfeld helped found and led the Sons and Daughters of Jewish Deportees from France.

Serge Klarsfeld's wife was paid 2,000 DM by the Stasi for her actions.

In December 2009, Serge Klarsfeld defied an existing consensus within the Jewish community by saying that the beatification of Pope Pius XII was an internal matter of the Church.

Serge Klarsfeld said that Jews should not get too involved in the process.

Serge Klarsfeld is vice-president of the Fondation pour la Memoire de la Shoah.

Serge Klarsfeld was indicted by the French government in 1991 but was killed in 1993 shortly before his trial was to begin.

In 2022, Serge Klarsfeld co-signed an article in Liberation headlined "No to Le Pen, daughter of racism and antisemitism".

Serge Klarsfeld argued that the National Rally was no longer a far-right party but a populist group that supports Jews and Israel, and claimed that the New Popular Front was dominated by La France Insoumise and Jean-Luc Melenchon; he claimed that the radical left had moved to antisemitism and anti-Zionism, and that this represented "a danger", saying that Melenchon was antisemitic and against Israel, and that he was "sure of this".

In 1978, Serge Klarsfeld published Memorial de la Deportation des Juifs de France, a book listing the names of more than 80,000 Jews deported from France to Nazi concentration camps or killed in France.

In 2012, Serge Klarsfeld published an updated version of the Memorial of the Deportation of the Jews of France, adding women's maiden names, deportees last address in France, and the transit or internment camp they went through.

Serge Klarsfeld wrote a preface to Une adolescence perdue dans la nuit des camps by Henri Kichka.

Klarsfeld and his wife co-wrote an autobiography, Hunting the Truth: Memoirs of Beate and Serge Klarsfeld, published in 2018.

Since the reunification of Germany and the opening of Stasi files, Lutz Rathenow, the State Commissioner for the Stasi Archives of Saxony, stated in 2012 that Serge Klarsfeld's wife had cooperated with the Stasi of East Germany in the 1960s.

On 7 July 2010, Serge Klarsfeld was awarded the title of Commander of the Legion of Honour by the then French prime minister Francois Fillon at Hotel Matignon, the official residence of France's prime minister.

On 20 November 2015, Serge Klarsfeld was made the Officer of the Order of Saint-Charles.