Germany backs open Holocaust records

[Ferran]

Germany backs open Holocaust records

Weighing privacy concerns, 10 other nations to consider action

Tuesday, April 18, 2006; Posted: 11:43 p.m. EDT (03:43 GMT)

Museum boss Sarah Bloomfield and Germany's Brigitte Zypries speak to reporters.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Germany said Tuesday it would help clear the way for opening records on 17 million Jews and other victims of the Nazis, a major step toward ending a long battle over access to a vast and detailed look into the Holocaust.

German Justice Minister Brigitte Zypries said her country would work with the United States to assure the opening of the archives, which are held in the German town of Bad Arolsen, and allow historians and survivors access to some 30 million to 50 million documents.

Until now, Germany had resisted providing access to the archives, citing privacy concerns.

The dramatic announcement, made at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, came after a 20-year effort by the museum and some other countries to get the archives opened.

Negotiations intensified in the past four or five years and took on even greater momentum in the past two years, said Arthur Berger, spokesman for the museum.

In a meeting Tuesday with museum director Sarah Bloomfield, Zypries said Germany had changed its position and would immediately seek revision of an 11-nation accord governing the archives. The 10 other countries must also formally agree if the records are to be opened, a process she said would take no more than six months.

Edward B. O'Donnell Jr., the State Department's special envoy for Holocaust issues, said he was encouraged, but he added, "We still have negotiations to do."

The next step is a meeting in Luxembourg on May 15, when all 11 countries would have to reach a consensus agreement. In some instances, parliaments would have to approve of the archives' opening as well.

Opening the archives would enable many survivors and families of victims of the Nazis to find out with more certainty than ever before what happened to their relatives.

"We are losing the survivors, and anti-Semitism is on the rise, so this move could not be more timely," Bloomfield said in an interview.

She said the move was "something of moral and historical importance in a critical time."

"Overall, it makes it possible to learn a lot more about the fate of individuals and to learn a lot more about the Holocaust itself -- concentration camps, deportations, slave-enforced labor and displaced persons," Paul Shapiro, director of the museum's center for advanced holocaust studies, said in a separate interview.

Speaking in German, Zypries said, "We now agree to open the data in Bad Arolsen in Germany. We now assume the data will be safeguarded by those countries that copy the material and use it, and now that we have made this decision we want to move forward." Her remarks were translated into English for reporters.

Germany's privacy law is one of the most restrictive among the 11 countries, Shapiro said. Remaining safeguards, he said, might limit duplicating a document or prevent using the name of someone cited without the person's permission, he said.

Dissemination through the Internet also may be tightly restrained. However, privacy laws of the other countries will now prevail, he said. Most are less restrictive than Germany's.

Bloomfield called the decision "a great step, a really important step." She said, "I will be completely thrilled when I get the material in the archives."

For 60 years, the International Red Cross has used the archived documents to trace missing and dead Jews and forced laborers, who were systematically persecuted by Nazi Germany and its confederates across central and eastern Europe before and during World War II.

But the archives have remained off-limits to historians and the public.

The International Red Cross Committee's Antonella Notari said that body is not on the 11-member decision-making panel and is not against opening the archives, but believes personal information needs to be treated carefully. The international body opened its own archives a decade ago, she said.

"It should definitely be open for historical research and there are ways to do that with respect for personal data," said Notari, chief spokeswoman of the ICRC in Geneva.

Besides Germany and the United States, the other countries involved are Belgium, Britain, France, Greece, Israel, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Poland.



Source: http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/europe....ap/index.html