RW Johnson – The saga of the simply extraordinary Robert Badinter

RW Johnson reflects on the life of the extraordinary Robert Badinter, who passed away at 95. Badinter witnessed the horrors of the Holocaust when the Nazis, led by Klaus Barbie, rounded up 86 Jews in Lyon in 1943. Badinter, surviving Auschwitz, became a human rights advocate and, as France's Minister of Justice, abolished the death penalty in 1981. His relentless pursuit of justice led to Barbie's conviction. In his later years, Badinter co-authored a book accusing Putin of Ukraine atrocities. France honours him in the Pantheon, alongside champions of human rights, commemorating his enduring legacy.

Sign up for your early morning brew of the BizNews Insider to keep you up to speed with the content that matters. The newsletter will land in your inbox at 5:30am weekdays. Register here.

By RW Johnson

The death this week of Robert Badinter at the age of 95 closes an epoch. Badinter's Jewish family fled to France to escape pogroms in their native Bessarabia (Moldova/Ukraine) but the pogroms followed them: when the Nazis invaded France in 1940 the family fled south to Lyon. For the south remained under Vichy rule until 1942 when the Allied landings in North Africa caused the Germans to take over the south as well. This ushered in the appalling reign of Klaus Barbie, the Gestapo "butcher of Lyon". 

___STEADY_PAYWALL___