Hôtel Terminus: The Life and Times of Klaus Barbie

Hôtel Terminus was Nazi officer Klaus Barbie's headquarters. Dubbed the "Butcher of Lyon" during the Second World War, Barbie was extradited from Bolivia to France in 1987 to stand trial for crimes against humanity. Hôtel Terminus is less a biography of Barbie than an inquiry into the way humanity deals with evil. It was the indifference of so many to the past and the alarming ease with which people tend to forget that shocked Marcel Ophüls and made him decide to make this documentary. He spoke with 80 people in France, Germany, Bolivia, Peru and the United States who at one time or another were involved with Barbie's life or career. We meet friends from Barbie's youth, tortured people from the Resistance, collaborators, former C.I.A. agents, Nazi hunters and former Bolivian politicians. Additionally, Ophüls invites a few commentators to speak, including Claude Lanzmann, director of Shoah. He allows his interviewees to give their own versions of history, but doesn't refrain from putting the pressure on with some tough questions as well.