Barbie Trial -- Day 15 -- Two civil parties testify

17:22 President Cerdini calls the next civil party, Mr. Isidore Friedler, to the stand; Mr. Friedler presents himself to the court 17:23 The civil party testifies; Mr. Friedler was living in Belgium with his extended family when the Nazis invaded in 1940; they fled for the French free zone, but he was arrested and sent to the Agde work camp before volunteering to go to Germany as a laborer; he worked in Poland as a translator before being allowed to return to France; upon his return to France, he sought to gain entry into the Resistance, and was arrested by the French police and sent to Compiègne and then to Auschwitz; he remained in Auschwitz until the end of the war, was forced to participate in a Death March to Mauthausen and then to Gusen, where he was freed on May 8, 1945 17:29 Mr. Friedler learned upon his return to Paris in 1945 that his wife and five-year-old daughter had been sent to Drancy and then to Auschwitz as part of the Izieu raid; President Cerdini asks for precision as to his wife and daughter's ages and his wife's title at the Maison d'Izieu 17:30 President Cerdini calls the next civil party, Fortunée Benguigui-Chouraki, to the stand; the civil party was deported to Auschwitz in 1943, where she was the victim of several medical experiments; three of her children were placed in the Maison d'Izieu and were subsequently killed in Auschwitz; her youngest child, a daughter, was hidden with a family near Izieu and survived the war 17:40 President Cerdini asks the civil party to clarify whether she saw her son Jacques arrive at Auschwitz, as she had noted in a deposition given in 1984; she first replies that she does not remember, then says that in fact she did see him there 17:42 Prosecutor Libman asks the jurors to turn to the page of the 'Enfants d'Izieu' brochure showing a photograph of the Benguigui children 17:45 Prosecutor Klarsfeld reads aloud a letter written to Mrs. Benguigui-Chouraki by her son Jacques while he was in Izieu and she was at Auschwitz, in which he wishes her a happy Mother's Day; the civil party is overcome with emotion 17:47 President Cerdini suspends the hearing