HadassahSukkot
20th November 2006, 04:00 PM
World's largest Nazi archive unseals files
Today, the Holocaust is known in dense and painful detail. Yet the young Russian's words leap off the faded page with a rawness that transports the reader back to April 1945, when World War II was still raging and the world knew little about gas chambers, genocide and the Final Solution.
The two pages of testimony, in a file randomly plucked off a shelf, are among millions of documents held by the International Tracing Service, or ITS, an arm of the International Committee of the Red Cross.
The archives contain entries on the famous and the unknown of the Holocaust. There are also written descriptions from those who survived the death camps. Applicants seeking information should call or visit a local chapter of the Red Cross, Red Crescent or Israel's Magen David Adom to complete a questionnaire. Details remain confidential and the service is free.
[more at link] http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1162378438900&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
This vast archive - 16 miles of files in six nondescript buildings in a German spa town - contains the fullest records of Nazi persecutions in existence. But because of concerns about the victims' privacy, the ITS has kept the files closed to the public for half a century, doling out information in minimal amounts to survivors or their descendants on a strict need-to-know basis.
This policy, which has generated much ill-feeling among Holocaust survivors and researchers, is about to change. In May, after pressure from the United States and survivors' groups, the 11 countries overseeing the archive agreed to unseal the files for scholars as well as victims and their families. In recent weeks, the ITS interim director, Jean-Luc Blondel, has been to Washington, The Hague and to the Buchenwald memorial with a new message of cooperation with other Holocaust institutions and governments.
Today, the Holocaust is known in dense and painful detail. Yet the young Russian's words leap off the faded page with a rawness that transports the reader back to April 1945, when World War II was still raging and the world knew little about gas chambers, genocide and the Final Solution.
The two pages of testimony, in a file randomly plucked off a shelf, are among millions of documents held by the International Tracing Service, or ITS, an arm of the International Committee of the Red Cross.
The archives contain entries on the famous and the unknown of the Holocaust. There are also written descriptions from those who survived the death camps. Applicants seeking information should call or visit a local chapter of the Red Cross, Red Crescent or Israel's Magen David Adom to complete a questionnaire. Details remain confidential and the service is free.
[more at link] http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1162378438900&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
This vast archive - 16 miles of files in six nondescript buildings in a German spa town - contains the fullest records of Nazi persecutions in existence. But because of concerns about the victims' privacy, the ITS has kept the files closed to the public for half a century, doling out information in minimal amounts to survivors or their descendants on a strict need-to-know basis.
This policy, which has generated much ill-feeling among Holocaust survivors and researchers, is about to change. In May, after pressure from the United States and survivors' groups, the 11 countries overseeing the archive agreed to unseal the files for scholars as well as victims and their families. In recent weeks, the ITS interim director, Jean-Luc Blondel, has been to Washington, The Hague and to the Buchenwald memorial with a new message of cooperation with other Holocaust institutions and governments.