US News
US researchers open up world's largest Holocaust archive
Jan 17, 2008, 19:30 GMT
Washington - Millions of documents from a long-restricted Holocaust archive in Germany opened to the public Thursday at a Washington museum, marking a victory for Nazi-era survivors after years of tense international negotiations.
Nearly 70 million scanned copies of camp, transport, ghetto, arrest and name records are now available to victims, family members and researchers at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum. The remaining 30 million images, on slave labour and Allied displaced-person camps, are to be transferred in stages by 2010.
In all, the now-opened International Tracing Service (ITS) in Bad Arolsen, Germany, has records on some 17.5 million Nazi victims, Jews and non-Jews.
Pressed by Jewish groups and the US government, countries overseeing the collection agreed last year to give copies to institutions in the US, Israel and Poland.
'These millions of documents open a new window on the daily fate of people who were targeted by the Nazis and their allies,' said Paul Shapiro, the museum's head of research.
'Often they reveal not grand strategy ... but the grinding routine of man's inhumanity to man, of a prisoner's effort to survive just one more day,' he said.
On Thursday, the Washington museum said it was ready to begin providing information from the archive.
Set up by the victorious Allies after World War II and formally administered by 11 Western nations since 1955, the ITS was virtually off-limits for more than five decades.
Even today, piecing together a victim's fate under the Nazis requires painstaking, time-consuming searches through name records, file cards and German documents.
In a key breakthrough, the German government in April 2006 dropped objections on privacy grounds to opening the archive. A month later, the other 10 countries followed suit.
'Opening the archive wasn't easy. It required convincing governments that were not inclined to act that they had to act,' Shapiro told reporters.
Privacy grounds were cited as a prime reason for restricting access to Bad Arolsen. But critics blamed indifference by European governments and alleged fears by some of them that the documents could expose Nazi collaborators.
The new ITS material will also add to the collection at Yad Vashem, Israel's national Holocaust memorial, which has had microfilmed copies of part of the tracing archive since the 1950s.
Since the ITS documents are not machine-searchable, people who want to see them have to fill out an online form. Victims of Nazi slave and forced labour will be among those whose requests will get priority, Shapiro said.
Jewish representatives and US members of Congress say opening the archive was important also to combat resurgent anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial, including statements by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
'With the rise of Holocaust denial in recent years, we really determined to do an all-out effort to open this archive and to give to survivors and their families what had been so long overdue,' said Sara Bloomfield, head of the US Holocaust museum.
© 2008 dpa - Deutsche Presse-AgenturCOMMENT
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Older Talkback
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The posters demonstrate the need for the memorial by their comments .Antisemitism is still not deaed .However antizionism is a different matter .Zionism on itself is a racist ideology nrsurlting in the theft of the palestininan land by colonist who claim their bronze age cook give them etarnal rights to a piece of land where they were not even born .As such it is the source of all conflicts in the Middle East .Imagine for a second of thejews claimed a god given right to posses the USA,started colonizing and claiming it had to be a pure jewish state.How would you react ?
Didn't you read? I said I am not anti-semitic. I am anti-bullcrap. I am sick and tired of having something thrown in my face as if I am responsible. There is also something very wrong with the statistics used. Yes, it is a tradgedy, for the jews, but it is small potatoes compared to the larger human tragedy of the 20th century. (Why don't we have memorials to that?) A tragedy that is continuing in the 21st century. By the way, the semititic races includes the Akkadians, Canaanites, Phoenicians, Hebrews, and Arabs.
Tonny,
'Antisemitism is still not deaed'
A couple millenia of antisemitism is the very justification for 'zionism.' If jews were not oppressed by individuals/ groups/ governments in an effective, brutal, and coordinated fashion for the last couple thousand years, then there would be no zionism.
You can be sure that jews are less interested in memorials, than in having a place they can call home and not be dependent upon anyone elses fickle good graces for their survival. I can totally appreciate their position.
Anytime a jew sees a charicature of a hook nosed greedy 'jew' - or reads the inhuman and murderous conspiracy rants that have been published over and over for hundreds of years, you can be sure that 'Israel' becomes that much more sweet and dear in their hearts. Expecting them to give it up is unrealistic and trying to take it away could be apocolyptic for many.
Stealing the land of the palestinians is no solution for anti-semitism at all.I understand that zionism is born out of pogroms and persecution .I just think the solution is unfair to the people living in Palestine for at least a millenia .Suddenly colonists from Europe invade the country claiming it belongs to them on account of a bronze age religion book,claiming jews are god's favorite tribe and all the rest of the world are less valuable .Sorry,but the solution to anti-semitism as practiced now in Israel is not working ,the Middle East turned into a powder keg and the whole world became unstable .Definitely a solution that gives the Palestinians the land that was stolen from them after 1967 is the only option .
'I just think the solution is unfair to the people living in Palestine for at least a millenia'
But that is far fewer than the people complaining/fighting today. I also think it is unfair and strange that the arabs shedding crocodile tears so profusely for their 'Palestinian' brothers should force them to live in squalid refugee camps.
Many of the immigrants to 'Palestine' came with or after the first waves of zionists. Also, many who were already there were nomads who had no set 'homeland.' Arabs who were forced out should be compensated in some way. So should jews who were forced out of arab lands. Let's make a big spreadsheet. What about victims who were killed? How far back do we go? You can be pretty sure that muslims who built a mosque right on top of the jews most sacred temple knew well what they were doing. That's 'old school.'
The Brits who controlled the mandate split the country (whose borders they drew) and gave 75-80% to arabs. That is now called Jordan. The rest - including the west bank - was intended for jewish homeland. The Brits and other Europeans arbitrarily divided up much of middle east and created entire countries. I agree they didn't do the best job but in the case of Palestine Mandate, it wasn't so unreasonable.
'Definitely a solution that gives the Palestinians the land that was stolen from them after 1967 is the only option'
Why is that the 'only' option? Remember - the land was Egyptian, Jordanian, and Syrian occupied territory. It wasn't 'Palestinian.'
I say compensate the innocent people with reasonable claims on both sides , and get over it.
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who cares?Jan 18th, 2008 - 02:09:38
I don't. I am so sick and tired of hearing about the jewish holocaust. If they want to sit shiva for the rest of time, then they can do it in their time, not mine. I prefer to think about the over 100 million of all races that died in the wars and famines and pandemics of the 20th century - a holocaust for all humanity. By the way, I am not a jewish holocaust denyer, but historical, archival evidence indicates that it was far less than the 6 million dead jews, that keeps getting thrown in our faces. Propoganda by the Zionists does nothing to earn them any sympathy or respect. It merely opens them up for more abuse.
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