Acting
Serge Klarsfeld
Born 1935-09-17 · Bucharest, Romania
Serge Klarsfeld (born 17 September 1935) 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. Since the 1960s, he has made notable efforts to commemorate the Jewish victims of German-occupied France and has been a supporter of Israel. Serge Klarsfeld was born in Bucharest into a family of Romanian Jews that migrated to France before the Second World War began. In 1943, his father was arrested by the SS in Nice during a roundup ordered by Alois Brunner. Deported to the Auschwitz concentration camp, Klarsfeld's father died there. The young Serge was cared for in a home for Jewish children operated by the Œuvre de secours aux enfants, a French Jewish humanitarian organisation. His mother and sister also survived the war in Vichy France and were helped by the underground French Resistance beginning in late 1943. He helped found and has led the Sons and Daughters of Jewish Deportees from France (Association des fils et filles des déportés juifs de France) or FFDJF. It is one of the groups that has documented cases and located former German and French officials for prosecution such as Klaus Barbie, René Bousquet, Jean Leguay, Maurice Papon and Paul Touvier, who had been implicated in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of French and foreign Jews during the Second World War. The Klarsfelds were among organised groups who filed cases decades after the war, sometimes as late as the 1990s, against such officials for crimes against humanity. In the years before 1989 and the break-up of the Soviet Union, the Klarsfelds (Serge Klarsfeld and his wife Beate) frequently protested against the Eastern Bloc's support for the PLO and anti-Zionism. Recognition for their work has included France's Legion of Honour in 1984. In 1986, their story was adapted as an American television film starring Tom Conti, Farrah Fawcett and Geraldine Page. In 2008, a French television movie was made about them. On 1 January 2014, the Klarsfelds' Legion of Honour ranks were upgraded: Serge became Grand officier. On 26 October 2015, the UNESCO designated the Klarsfelds as "Honorary Ambassadors and Special Envoys for Education about the Holocaust and the Prevention of Genocide". Serge married Beate Künzel in 1963 and settled in Paris. Their son, Arno Klarsfeld (born 1965), became a human rights attorney and worked for Nicolas Sarkozy while he was minister of the interior. In 2012 the archivist of the Stasi revealed that Beate Klarsfeld's attack on German Chancellor Kurt Georg Kiesinger by publicly slapping him on 7 November 1968 was carried out in agreement with and the support of the government of East Germany, which was conducting a campaign against West German politicians (see Braunbuch). Beate Klarsfeld was paid 2,000 DM by the Stasi for her actions. Both Serge and Beate Klarsfeld were revealed to have been regular Stasi contacts. According to the State Commissioner for the Stasi Archives of Saxony, they cooperated with the Stasi in the 1960s in blackmailing West German politicians for Second World War activities. ... Source: Article "Serge Klarsfeld" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.
Acting credits
6.8This exceptional, disturbing, and thought-provoking two-part documentary compares the atrocities committed by the Nazis as revealed during the Nuremberg trials to those committed by the French in Algeria and those done by the Americans in Vietnam. The four-hour epic questions the right of any country to pass self-righteous moral judgements upon the actions of another country.
The Memory of Justice
1976
NRA documentary feature by award-winning filmmaker Boaz Dvir, “To Kill a Nazi” tells the story of a French family man who sets out in to kill his father’s Gestapo executioner and ended up playing a pivotal role in history’s most audacious hostage rescue.
To Kill a Nazi
2026
NRNo synopsis available yet.
L'irréparable - 1995, le discours du Vel d'Hiv
2026
No synopsis available yet.
La vie après la Shoah
2010
With her slap of the Federal Chancellor Kurt Georg Kiesinger in 1968, Beate Klarsfeld abruptly got known worldwide. The film highlights the significance of this act and its background. Beate Klarsfeld, born in Berlin in 1939 as Beate Künzel, is primarily known to people as "the woman with the slap" and as the Nazi hunter. In 1960 she went to Paris and met her future husband Serge Klarsfeld, whose father was deported to Auschwitz and murdered there. She was confronted with the darkest part of German history, about which she had learned nothing at school. Serge gave her books to read and made her actively deal with them. Since then, she has not let go of dealing with the crimes of the Nazi era. For them, it was always about "responsibility, not guilt".
Berlin - Paris: Die Geschichte der Beate Klarsfeld
2011
7.1Reveals an alternate history of the post-war world. This is a version of history where, in contrast to what we are all told, fascist ideology prevailed. The story of Klaus Barbie, Nazi torturer, American spy, tool of repressive right-wing regimes, is symbolic of the real relationship that the "Western" governments had with fascism and makes us see the world as it is today - and the politicians that inhabit it - in a different way.
My Enemy's Enemy
2007
Photography was strictly forbidden in Auschwitz. And yet there are several photo albums from the scene of the crime. Who took the photos - and why? That remained a mystery for a long time.
The Secret Of The Auschwitz Albums - Photos From Hell
2016
7.3For the first time, a film recounts the story of the long pursuit of Nazis in hiding from 1945 to the present day. Sixty years of investigations, set-backs trials and dramas, brought about principally by three extraordinary individuals—the Austrian Simon Wiesenthal, and the German-French couple, Beate and Serge Klarsfeld.
Hunting Down the Nazis
2007
7.1Marcel Ophuls' riveting film details the heinous legacy of the Gestapo head dubbed "The Butcher of Lyon." Responsible for over 4,000 deaths in occupied France during World War II, Barbie would escape—with U.S. help—to South America in 1951, where he lived until a global manhunt led to his 1983 arrest and subsequent trial.
Hôtel Terminus: The Life and Times of Klaus Barbie
1988
8.0No synopsis available yet.
Mein Name sei Altmann
2015
No synopsis available yet.
Nicht Rache, sondern Gerechtigkeit. Das Leben von Beate und Serge Klarsfeld
2017
NRFor more than half a century, Beate and Serge Klarsfeld have hunted, confronted, and exposed Nazi war criminals. Now in their 80s, they still continue their activism against today’s new Nazis and far right extremists.
Klarsfeld
2022
6.0No synopsis available yet.
Les rafles d'août 1942 en zone libre, un crime de l'État Français
2009
NRNo synopsis available yet.
Les lois anti-juives de Vichy, 1940-1944
2013
NRNo synopsis available yet.
Ils ne savaient pas ? Les Français et la Shoah sous l'occupation
2012
6.0No one knows his real name; he is only known as Mr. Shoshani. He was an eternal nomad, a mad genius, who attracted disciples such as Nobel Prize winner Eli Weisel and renowned philosopher Emmanuel Levinas. Mr. Shoshani is one of the unsolved riddles of the 20th century, he is among the 10 most mysterious people of all time.
The Shoshani Riddle
2023
8.0No synopsis available yet.
La France de l'épuration, entre vengeance et justice
2025
No synopsis available yet.
Les juifs d'Afrique du Nord pendant la Seconde Guerre mondiale
2014
No synopsis available yet.
La justice allemande face aux criminels nazis
2015