The Holocaust Archive

Incredibly, an archive of 50 million documents relating to 17 million people is only now to be opened to scholars. (You would think that the point of an archive was to allow scholars access to the past. However, there are obviously 2 schools of thought on that.)

The documents have been under lock and key in the small north German town of Bad Arolsen since the war, and administered by an 11-nation group. Evidently, Germany's restrictive privacy laws and fears of lawsuits were behind the consistent refusal to let the scholars in.

You do wonder how the Holocaust-deniers are going to explain away 50 million documents. However, human ingenuity knows few limits. Perhaps the Iranians could provide a scholarship or two.

The Spiegel article is here.

Tagged: Holocaust, History