NDTV.com http://www.ndtv.com/homepage/
Germany to open Holocaust records http://www.ndtv.com/morenews/showmorestory.asp?slug=Germany+to+open+Holocaust+records&id=87079 Thursday, April 20, 2006 (Washington DC): Germany has agreed to clear the way for the opening of Nazi records on some 17 million Jews and enslaved labourers who were persecuted and slain during the Holocaust. Speaking in Washington at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, Justice Minister Brigitte Zypries said that Germany would work in partnership with the United States to assure the opening of the archives. The archives are currently held in Bad Arolsen, Germany, and will allow historians and survivors access to some 30-50 million documents. Until now, Germany resisted calls to provide free access to the archives, citing that disclosing intimate details about the fates of concentration camp inmates and slave labourers would violate their right to privacy. The dispute has percolated for nearly a decade. Critics blamed bureaucrats for the impasse. But in a meeting on Tuesday with Sara Bloomfield, the museum's director, Zypries said Germany had changed its position and would seek immediate revision of an 11-nation accord that governs the archives. She said that should take no more than six months. Museum director Bloomfield said she was extremely happy with the decision and will be thrilled to gain access to the material in the archives. For 60 years, the International Red Cross has managed the archived documents to trace missing and dead Jews and forced labourers, who were systematically persecuted by Nazi Germany and its anti-Semitic confederates across central and eastern Europe before and during World War II. It continues to receive about 1,50,000 requests a year from people seeking information about missing relatives or confirmation of what happened to them under Nazi rule. (AP)
