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>> The Edouard
Kalifat Association for Humanitarian Search (AEK) was founded on 20th
January 1994
as a continuation of the operation led since 1992 by its president, Denis
Sellem. The aim of
this operation was to find Edouard Kalifat who disappeared in the USSR
after being liberated
from Auschwitz by the Red Army in January 1945.
From
the outset the association had taken as its brief to search out all those
who disappeared in the USSR at the end of the Second World War, to track
down the numerous resistance fighters, soldiers, deportees, and internees
of the Forced Labour Camps, who having been liberated by Soviet troops
from German prisoner of war and extermination camps, were spirited away
during the immediate post-war repatriation operations.
Faced with the humanitarian
importance of this operation, the FIDH very quickly decided to support
this association and give its president an international search warrant
intended to further his investigations in the different countries of the
Community of Independent States (CEI) which had taken the place of the
USSR.
Since 1994, by its
grass-roots investigations the AEK has been able to trace dozens of the
‘disappeared’ and to locate two who are still alive.
Several eminent personalities
support this mission with its great moral and historical significance
and sit on this association’s honorary committee. In 1997, by reason
of its successes and the spread of its influence both nationally and internationally,
the assoc-iation was admitted to a seat on the French NGO and ONU Committees.
Last year, the AEK
succeeded in unearthing in St Petersburg’s medical military archives,
thousands of meticulously kept dossiers on foreigners in the USSR.
Negotiations concerning
the Russian medical military archives.
Within the context
of negotiations undertaken with the Russian military authorities to obtain
the transfer of copies of the dossiers discovered last year in St. Petersburg’s
medical military archives by the Edouard Kalifat Association, Denis Sellem,
mandated by the FIDH, led another mission to Russia between the 5th and
16th September 2000.
During this mission,
the AEK’s president went to St. Petersburg and Novgorod where he
was able to meet the press and give interviews. On this occasion, fresh
descriptions of wanted persons were issued and testimonies gathered about
Westerners who had disappeared in the USSR after the Second World War.
On 13th September
2000, after closely argued negotiations in the presence of Mrs.Isabelle
Tourancheau, the press attaché of the Consulat General de France
at St. Petersburg, Denis Sellem reached an agreement with the official
in charge of the medical military archives, that in return for a financial
contribution towards the cost of research and duplication, a first instalment
of 1000 dossiers on French citizens would be made available. This list
would include members of the illustrious Normandy-Niemen brigade wounded
during the fierce aerial combats for control of the air during the Second
World War.
This agreement, confirmed
through the press by interested parties, will be put into operation after
the signature of an official protocol which will happen between now and
the end of the year in the presence of the Consul General de France, whose
job it will be to make sure that these arrangements are properly executed
and reciprocal contracts duly respected.
The appeal for
openness
A press conference,
which met on the 14th September 2000 at the residence of the Consul General
de France gave the AEK’s president the opportunity of clarifying
the extent of the agreement concluded with the official in charge of the
Russian military medical archives and of giving an update on the searches
currently taking place in Russia. This conference also gave him the opportunity
of explaining to the Russian public just how similar the experience of
waiting was for the families of ‘disappeared’ French people
in particular and Westerners in general to the experience of Russian families
desperately hoping that the whole truth will be uncovered regarding the
disappearance of their children in Chechnya and in the recent shipwreck
of the nuclear submarine Koursk
A legal vacuum
In the matter of
the archives, it must be remembered that Soviet state archives have always
been hermetically sealed and protected by a cult of secrecy which has
been consistently maintained, and especially those archives concerning
foreigners detained by the Ministry of the Interior and various security
organisations. Nowadays, contrary to what might have been said when the
USSR disappeared, these archives are no more open for consultation than
in the past, because legislation has not advanced. The situation prevailing
in the new CEI countries is the same as can be seen all over the world
where democracy either does not exist or is faltering. In every case,
the lack of democracy and statutory rights makes searching for disappeared
persons very difficult, or indeed impossible.
Faced with the legal
vacuum which exists on an international plane regarding searching for
the ‘disappeared’, the agreement obtained with the Russian military
is definite ‘first’, a precedent which can only advance the
battle waged by the AEK and the FIDH to have the rights of search and
investigation in so-called sensitive archives by the victims, their families
and/or representatives, finally recognised by the States. The families’
right to know and the possibility of fulfilling our duty to keep these
things in remembrance represent another fundamental victory to be won
in the area of Human Rights.
Isabelle
Plissonneau
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