April 23



GERMANY:

Germany ratifies accord on Nazi archive


An international agreement to unseal a long-closed archive of Nazi
concentration camp documents for scholarship has won crucial endorsement
from Germany, officials said Thursday, giving the accord a majority among
the 11-nations overseeing the treasure of historical documents.

The German Embassy in Washington announced that President Horst Koehler
signed the ratification papers April 13, adopting amendments to the 1955
treaties governing the archive.

The storehouse of 30 million to 50 million pages is administered by the
International Tracing Service, an arm of the International Committee of
the Red Cross.

The announcement came as the oversight committee prepared to meet next
month in The Hague to finalize arrangements for the transfer of
digital copies to other Holocaust research centers, where survivors will
be able to see their own files and historical researchers will be allowed
to cull them for new insights into the Nazi machinery of persecution.

All 11 nations must ratify the amendments before they take effect. But
Germany's endorsement was crucial because of its place in history as the
successor to the Nazi regime and because the archives are on German soil,
in the central town of Bad Arolsen, and subject to German law.

Germany is the sixth nation to ratify after the United States,
Israel, Poland, the Netherlands and Britain.

The remaining countries are Belgium, France, Italy, Greece and Luxembourg.
Most have said they intend to complete ratification before the end of the
year.

The collection of captured Nazi documents death books, transportation
lists, camp registrations, forced labor registers was handed to the Red
Cross to help find missing persons and reunite families in the postwar
chaos. It later was used to validate compensation claims by survivors or
victims' relatives.

Since 1955, it has handled more than 11 million requests for information,
but it rarely has allowed anyone but Red Cross staff to see the material.

The files contain references to 17.5 million names. Their historical
importance became clearer in recent months after The Associated Press
obtained extensive access to the material on condition that victims not be
identified fully.

The amendments were adopted last May after Germany lifted long-held
objections that victims' privacy would be violated.

But the ratification process, requiring parliamentary approval in most
countries, proved more arduous than anticipated, disappointing aging
survivors.

Last week, the U.S. Senate adopted a resolution urging the remaining
countries to quickly complete the legal steps.

The measure, introduced by Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., chairman of the Foreign
Relations Committee, also urged the commission at its May meeting to
approve the immediate distribution of copies that already have been
digitized.

(source: Associated Press)