Monday, March 12, 2007

Long-Secret Archive of Nazi Records to be Opened

Millions of secret files on concentration camps and their victims are likely to be opened by the end of the year.

Representatives of the eleven nations that comprise the governing commission of the International Tracing Service voted on Thursday to begin the process to publicize the papers, AP reports. The Service controls between 30 and 50 million pages of Holocaust documentation...

The files, stored in Bad Arolsen, Germany, have been used since the 1950s to help locate missing persons or uncover the fate of people who disappeared during the Third Reich. Later, the files were also used to validate claims for compensation. Only personnel of the Tracing Service, an arm of the International Committee of the Red Cross, has had access to the files, which fill 16 miles of gray metal filing cabinets and cardboard binders in six buildings.
Wasn't Adolph Hitler a big believer in gun control? Hmmm. 16 miles of filing cabinets? 50 million pages of documentation? And some people charge the Second Amendment is "anachronistic"? Tell that to the Jewish Germans of the 1930s and 40s.