Tensions Rise In Long Feud...Denial Of Access To 50 Million Record WWII, Nazi Archive

Source: Washington Post

Looks like politicians on both sides of the globe are busy trying to hide or revise history. The German government keeps denying researchers access to documents that list the names of 17.5 million people, including concentration camp prisoners, forced laborers, and other victims of the Third Reich.

BAD AROLSEN, Germany -- Boxed away in a former Nazi SS barracks in this central German town is the core of one of the largest collections of historical documents from World War II. All told, the archive contains 50 million records that list the names of 17.5 million people, including concentration camp prisoners, forced laborers and other victims of the Third Reich.

For 60 years, the International Committee of the Red Cross has used the documents to trace the missing and the dead, especially those of the Holocaust. But the archive has remained off-limits to historians and the public, fueling an increasingly bitter dispute among Holocaust researchers, Jewish groups and the 11 nations that oversee the collection.

The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington and diplomats from the United States, France and the Netherlands are pressing to open the archive to researchers and make digital copies of the collection available for inspection outside Germany. Possessiveness and a refusal to change with the times have kept the records closed, some critics contend.

People deserve the right to see these documents from WWII. They should be used as a reminder of where we have been so we as an international community don't "go there" again.

Maybe some required reading for members of the Bush Administration into some history on war crimes and government-sanctioned atrocities may be in order, too.

And yes, I just did make that connection between Hitler and current United States President George W. Bush, and I will openly debate that position with anyone who feels the need.

Good day.



Read up on "Godwin's Law" in Wikipedia, if you don't understand the Hitler/Bush image.

Tags: [Germany], [German government won't allow access to records of Holocaust to public], [Jewish groups and Holocaust researchers want access to WWII German records]