International Christian Embassy Jerusalem, 29 Nov 2007

The Nazi regime's meticulous archives of 50 million documents on the Holocaust in World War II has finally been opened to the public, it was announced on Wednesday. The massive vaults contain materials related to the persecution, exploitation and extermination of millions of Jewish civilians by the Nazis, which were only available for limited viewing for the past 60 years.

The Nazi party's practice of detailed record-keeping has rendered the Holocaust the most-well documented genocide in history, with records showing some 17.5 million people fell victim to the National Socialist party from 1933 to 1945. The records are stored at the International Tracing Service (ITS) at Bad Arolsen in Germany. Greece was the last of the 11-member international commission that supervises the service to ratifiy the archives opening, reports The Jerusalem Post.

Until now only close family members of Holocaust victims and survivors have had access to the files, for purposes of reuniting families, tracing missing persons and to provide documentation to support victim compensation claims. But now, detailed research can be conducted on concentration camp populations and registrations, transport of prisoners, the health of forced labors, and the cruel and shocking medical experiments carried out on inmates, all matters disputed by persistent Holocaust deniers.

Even before the end of the war documents were collected by allied forces and entrusted to the Red Cross. The records from concentrations camps were taken to Bad Arolsen and stored there 60 years ago when the service, which is directed and commissioned by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), was founded.

The US Holocaust Memorial Museum has lobbied since 2001 for ITS (www.its-arolsen.org) to open the historic archives.

Copyright © 2007 International Christian Embassy Jerusalem