Leo Rechter: Holocaust Museum Snubs Survivors on Bad Arolsen Files But Luxembourg Gets the Data
[Leo Rechter is the president of the National Association of Jewish Child Holocaust Survivors.]
According to a recent press-release by the International Tracing Service (ITS) in Bad Arolsen, the ITS has transferred copies of data from its archives to the ‘Documentation and Research Center on the Resistance’ in Luxembourg. Around 80 million images and roughly six terabytes of data have been handed over, including documents on concentration camps, ghettos and prisons (ca. 18 million images), the ITS central name index (ca. 42 million images) registration cards of displaced persons (ca. 7 million images, and documents concerning forced labor (ca, 13 million images).
Apparently, the small country of Luxembourg has a greater right and a more pressing need for a complete set of Holocaust related archival files than the families of Holocaust Survivors in New York, Miami, Chicago, Boston and other major cities in the U.S.A.
Unless Holocaust Survivors, Second and Third Generation individuals wake up and start applying pressure and mass protests on the United States Holocaust Museum Memorial in Washington, D.C. to release its sets of Holocaust files and records to major Jewish museums and libraries all over America, the USHMM will continue to monopolize the data for its own purposes. In the process, the Museum will ignore the fact that – absent prompt and widespread distribution of the data – many survivors will pass from this earth without finding out the fate of their martyred relatives; information that very likely could be found in these archives.
Once again, we are calling upon the USHMM Museum in Washington, D.C. to disseminate – either on the Internet or, at least, to local libraries and museums – all digitized data that they received so far. To ask survivors in their 70s, 80s and 90s to wait another few years before providing direct access, is unethical and immoral. Enough with the spurious excuses and monopolizing attempts.
Read entire article at The Cutting Edge
According to a recent press-release by the International Tracing Service (ITS) in Bad Arolsen, the ITS has transferred copies of data from its archives to the ‘Documentation and Research Center on the Resistance’ in Luxembourg. Around 80 million images and roughly six terabytes of data have been handed over, including documents on concentration camps, ghettos and prisons (ca. 18 million images), the ITS central name index (ca. 42 million images) registration cards of displaced persons (ca. 7 million images, and documents concerning forced labor (ca, 13 million images).
Apparently, the small country of Luxembourg has a greater right and a more pressing need for a complete set of Holocaust related archival files than the families of Holocaust Survivors in New York, Miami, Chicago, Boston and other major cities in the U.S.A.
Unless Holocaust Survivors, Second and Third Generation individuals wake up and start applying pressure and mass protests on the United States Holocaust Museum Memorial in Washington, D.C. to release its sets of Holocaust files and records to major Jewish museums and libraries all over America, the USHMM will continue to monopolize the data for its own purposes. In the process, the Museum will ignore the fact that – absent prompt and widespread distribution of the data – many survivors will pass from this earth without finding out the fate of their martyred relatives; information that very likely could be found in these archives.
Once again, we are calling upon the USHMM Museum in Washington, D.C. to disseminate – either on the Internet or, at least, to local libraries and museums – all digitized data that they received so far. To ask survivors in their 70s, 80s and 90s to wait another few years before providing direct access, is unethical and immoral. Enough with the spurious excuses and monopolizing attempts.