After 50 years, Holocaust archive going public

[JudyM]

Unsealing of millions of documents likely to spur new questions, research.

This vast archive — 16 miles of files in six nondescript buildings in a German spa town — contains the fullest records of Nazi persecutions in existence. But because of concerns about the victims’ privacy, the ITS has kept the files closed to the public for half a century, doling out information in minimal amounts to survivors or their descendants on a strict need-to-know basis. This policy, which has generated much ill-feeling among Holocaust survivors and researchers, is about to change.

In May, after years of pressure from the United States and survivors’ groups, the 11 countries overseeing the archive agreed to unseal the files for scholars as well as victims and their families...

When the archive is finally available, researchers will have their first chance to see a unique collection of documents on concentration camps, slave labor camps and displaced persons. From toneless lists and heartrending testimony, a skilled historian may be able to stitch together a new perspective on the 20th century’s darkest years from the viewpoint of its millions of victims...

Another subject is the sheer scope of the Holocaust system. The files will support new research from other sources showing that the network of concentration camps, ghettos and labor camps was nearly three times more extensive than previously thought...

Between 1933 to 1945, the Nazi persecution grew to assembly-line proportions, slaughtering 6 million Jews and an equal number of Gypsies, homosexuals, mental patients, political prisoners and other “undesirables.” Tens of millions were conscripted as forced laborers... To operate history’s greatest slaughter, the Nazis created a bureaucracy that meticulously recorded the arrest, movement and death of each victim.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15791203/

[jwirr]

1. I have mixed feelings. I am feeling the shame of my ethnicity -

German - but I am also glad they will be opened. We have come too close to emulating the mistakes that were made in Germany before the Holocaust in the US these last 6 years. In fact we need to get on with the new directions away from the *ss policies of the past. We are too close to forgetting what humanity can do to one-another. We need this reminder. And if it is worse than we have been told then maybe we need to know that also.

I am also glad that the "other" millions who died beside the Jews will be seen for the first time. To few people even realize that they died.

[bemildred]

2. The truth sets you free.

It sets us all free.
:thumbsup:

[JudyM]

3. That's the thing -- we all need to understand how this happened -

from its roots to its realization on such a mass scale with so many thousands of witnesses just standing by instead of standing up to put a stop to it. The discussion about the automization of the process - though the article doesn't mention it, IBM contributed greatly to the Nazis' processing so many people through the death camps, other companies were also complicit... is particularly chilling to me and is a reminder that corporations need to be corralled - and accountable - when they act unethically.

[Lipton64]

4. Don't feel bad, the German people were under the boot of a fascistic thug, what do you expect to....

be the outcome? I'm a proud German-American. We didn't do shit. 2 of my cousins were murdered by the regime for simply doing the crime of being terminally ill with TB at the time. Of course the regime lied to my family and said they "died of their illness" but after the war we found out otherwise. We were among the Social Democrats who escaped the rounding-up and who very sadly if you ask me fearful to the threat of these monsters. That didn't stop the SS from investigating my great-great grandfather though for helping his Jewish butcher friend escape to Sweden - a "crime" that almost cost half my family a stay in Bergen-Belsen.

Don't you think if they told the German people what they were doing there would have been a far-stronger outburst of anger against the regime? Killing always seems to scare the shit out of people and bring about radical change. Stories I've been told though about how Gestapo thugs would frequently make people heard criticizing the regime simply "disappear" no doubt kept public criticism of an out-of-line and wacked-out regime to a bare minimum.

Many in the West say they would have resisted more had they lived in Germany at the time but let BushCo. turn America into the Goose-stepping paradise he and Cheney really want and let's see how many really join hands in opposition when people start disappearing or start mysteriously dying in car accidents and the like. I guarantee criticism of the government will screech to a halt out of fear of one's own life and out of fear for the safety of one's friends and family and property.

I guarantee you this country will fall into a cloud of fear if such a government were installed here God forbid.

And by the way, for the record, no matter how horrendous and truly fucking evil and debauched the Holocaust was, it was NOT the worst mass-killing in world-history.

Credit for that goes to Stalin whose exact number of victims still isn't even known. I've read in a National Geographic book that one million Kazakhs died in the purge so that's for that group and I've heard numbers anywhere from 9 million to 20 million Ukrainians during the purges.

The numbers aren't known but most think Stalin killed between 40 and 60 million - a number that very tragically trounces Hitler's victims. But what do you expect from a monster who said "one death is a tragedy, a million a statistic." That kind of vile evil lies in all these authoritarian types. Not to mention Mao's estimated 70 million Chinese dead. We could go for weeks reciting the names of their collective victims.

But one thing is for sure -- these pigs' victims are a clear, stark, and disturbingly sobering wake-up call that we must fight authoritarianism in any of its evil forms: fascism, Nazism, communism, religious fundamentalism, or now, our American corporatism.

We must stand up to the forces of evil and stop them from prevailing or this country and the freedoms it stands for will soon mean nothing.

[JudyM]

9. I think you're wrong about the likelihood that this would happen here. Or I hope you're wrong.

I think the corporate media would contribute to the likelihood of it happening here, but the internet being what it is, people would post info and even video of the truth and it would spread and allow a resistance to form pretty effectively, IMO. There are already networks of activists and potential activists formed around the country. It's not as if we'd need to vote to put an end to it, as in getting rid of the * regime. If there were widespread crimes against humanity happening in the US, it would get around. There's a difference between mass murder and deprivation of civil liberties, even though a move to the former may start with the latter.

[raccoon]

32. Yes, it's always easy for anybody to say they would have done

such and such, when they weren't there in the first place.

"Many in the West say they would have resisted more had they lived in Germany at the time..."


"I guarantee criticism of the government will screech to a halt out of fear of one's own life and out of fear for the safety of one's friends and family and property"

I think so too.

[Blaq Dem]

11. There were brave Germans

Just as there were brave white people who helped slaves escape through the underground railroad.

Keep your head up.

[No Exit]

28. Sorry, you Germans are no longer the number one scapegoats...

That distinction belongs to us Americans now. We are the ones who will have to hang our heads in shame for the next 50 years: we are the ones who invaded Iraq for NO REASON, killing thousands, and we are the ones who let our government be hijacked by persons who don't care about us and don't care if our young people live or die, and who CERTAINLY don't care if civilians in other countries live or die.

The Israelis might also hang their heads in shame, but I think they are impervious to it. Or, those Israelis who are NOT impervious to it are oppressed and stifled by the ones who are warmongers.

[jwirr]

29. Unfortunately, I am a German-America also. However, I realize

my feeling on one level is a gut reaction, on another level I know that I was not part of Hitler's crimes. My family sent sons to fight him. The feelings come from simply knowing that but for some ancestor's foresight in coming to America I might have been one of his followers.

[No Exit]

31. I'm part German, too--and my uncle, who was half German, died fighting them.

I don't think that in my heart I'd have been one of Hitler's followers. Certainly if I'd been over 35 when he was rising, etc., I wouldn't have supported him in my heart. I'd have known bullshit when I saw it. With Bush, I've considered emigrating; I'd probably have thought of that if I was under Hitler, too.

Hitler killed LOTS of people. But so have many others, such as Stalin. I don't think Hitler was any worse than Stalin, for example.

While it was horrible and tragic that millions of Jewish civilians were killed, it is also horrible and tragic that millions of other civilians have also been killed by other scumbags, throughout history. What galls me is that such needless killing is still going on to this day. What galls me even more is that there are actually some Israelis who don't mind killing innocent civilians. (See: Avigdor Lieberman, for example.) I can't believe that an Israeli, of all people, would be blind to the horror of needless killing--considering the sorrow they feel for the horrors Hitler inflicted on Jews. It's almost like some Israelis admire Hitler's style and seek to emulate it.

Those people, however, are in my opinion a minority--but they appear to be a powerful minority. IMO the great majority of Jewish people do not support the imitation-nazi act of some of Israel's leaders. I have heard that there are lots of Israelis who don't support it, but they are not allowed to be heard. I certainly know that only about a small handful of American Jews support it--they are called neocons. The rest of American Jews, I think, are people who think like Russ Feingold.

[FVZA_Colonel]

5. Let's just hope this shuts up the Holocaust deniers.

Oh, who am I kidding? Nothing will ever shut them up, as there will never be enough proof for their addled minds that the Holocaust happened.

[Behind the Aegis]

8. You are correct.

One of the winners of the Iranian Holocaust cartoon contest:



Translation (roughly):

"Qui l'a mis par terre?" (Who brought this to earth? ("Who knocked it (the myth) down?"))
"Faurisson." (Faurisson -- a French Holocaust denier)

(on the base of the building) "Mythe des chambres a gaz" ("Myths of the gas chambers")

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

21. Fat chance.

They'll claim it took fifty years to open the archives because it took fifty years to forge all of the documents.

Edit: I've just had a look at the 9/11 forum, and it now appears that the scholarz is enamored of the idea that space-based beam weapons destroyed the twin towers. Secret Nazi space-based beam weapons? You be the judge.

[psychopomp]

6. Never forget!

[Behind the Aegis]

7. Indeed!

[Blaq Dem]

10. Everyone around the world needs to know this history

The Holocaust was REAL. It can happen again...

'...Lest we forget'

[Barrett808]

12. I wonder if we'll get new evidence about US complicity

For example: Standard Oil, IBM, Ford, Brown Brothers Harriman...

[moondust]

26. Wouldn't surprise me

if there have been requests or even demands for advance parties to go in and scrub the archives of damaging information.

I'd recommend that somebody rush in and make copies of the incriminating stuff before it disappears.

[4dsc]

13. Where do I start..

I would like to find out information about my grandfather's 4 brother's and sister whom were killed by the Nazi's in Poland during WWII.

Any suggestions where I should start??

[Bassic]

16. Actually, I'n not sure exactly what kind of documents are kept there,

But if you mange to contact an archivist (hoping that one of them might speak English, or if you speak German), they may be able to help you find the information you want.

If, of course, they kept the relevant documents.

[Lurking Dem]

20. Start with the Shoah Project

You can go through the archives online by name, I think.

Generally speaking, it is a laborious process. As in, finding a relative and finding out if they have info on other relatives, etc.

[jwirr]

25. I would begin by contacting the Holocaust Museum in DC. They

will probably know how to source this data.

[JudyM]

27. Try the Yad Vashem online database - they have a lot of documentation and it's easy to do.

Here's the link - click on the link for searching the names database:
http://www.yadvashem.org/

Good luck... and I'm sorry that you lost family. I did too... my grandmother's mom and sisters in the Ukraine suddenly stopped writing to her and were never heard from again. That's all we know, unfortunately. I haven't been able to find any direct info.

:cry:

[UncleSepp]

30. If you are not a German speaker and need a translator, let me know

I can do German fine, and if you give me two months, I can muddle along with Yiddish. (I can understand it spoken but haven't had much exposure to it written down.) If it helps to find family, I'd be glad to lend a hand. Or ear. Or fingers. Or whatever.

[Bassic]

14. Hopefully, this will shut the revisionnists and holocayst deniers up.

That's my hope anyway.

[geek tragedy]

15. They don't deny it because they don't believe it

happened.

They deny it because they're upset that Hitler didn't finish the job.

[Bassic]

17. True, but if there is enough evidence, they wont be able to back their claims

The general unavailability of specifinc information on the subject has been one of their favored weapons over the years.

[geek tragedy]

18. They all use some variation of the Chewbacca defense.

They'll keep on doing it. They'll take two conflicting accounts from people in different parts of Europe and cite it as proof.

Or they'll claim that the whole archive is forged.

[Bassic]

19. True, but I keep hoping that it will make their influence lessen.

I don't really believe, actually, but I can hope.

[wallwriter]

22. Fundamental logical flaw of Holocaust denial:

The only ones who deny it are the ones who are glad it happened.

[Bassic]

24. True, that.

And assholes all.

[JudyM]

23. Or because they don't want the world to think that Jewish people paid their dues

and/or deserve a voice or seat at the table.