26 April 2021
Time to read: 6 mins
More than 75 years after the end of the Second World War, it remains difficult to locate and gain access to documentation related to the Holocaust. But ensuring full and open access to Holocaust archives is not a niche issue—it is essential to safeguarding the record of the Holocaust, and creating open and democratic societies.
The IHRA’s Member Countries “share a commitment to throw light on the still obscured shadows of the Holocaust” and have committed to taking “all necessary steps to facilitate the opening of archives in order to ensure that all documents bearing on the Holocaust are available to researchers.”
In line with this urgent responsibility, the IHRA Project on Monitoring Access to Holocaust Collections was launched in 2020. It aims to ensure full and open access to Holocaust collections by increasing awareness, creating a forum for cooperation, and establishing guidelines on archival access for use by archivists and policymakers.
We spoke to former Project Chair, Dr. Haim Gertner, member of the Israeli delegation to IHRA, about why this is so important. Until recently, Dr. Gertner was Director of the Yad Vashem Archives and now serves as Director Yad Vashem’s International Relations Division.
The Nazis and their collaborators not only murdered the Jews; they initiated it with an intention to eradicate their civilization from the face of the earth and erase all traces of their existence. So each and every document about Jewish life before, during, and after the Holocaust is extremely valuable.
Open access means providing researchers and the public with the ability to find and use Holocaust-related documentation for commemoration, education, and research purposes. Open access does not precede privacy regulations, but rather encourages archives to implement these prudently where Holocaust documentation is concerned.
The first obstacle is the lack of a unified definition of “Holocaust-related materials.” Different archives define these in different ways, often in quite a narrow, technical manner.
Additionally, a survey conducted by an IHRA Project team highlighted two further barriers: legal barriers—mainly in the form of privacy protection laws—and physical barriers, such as disorderly collections, lack of search tools, inaccessible archives and more.
In 2015, during the first IHRA “Access to Archives” project, the formulation of the GDPR regulations reached its final stages in the European Union. Thanks to the intervention of the project team and all the Member Countries of the IHRA, we were able to add in Recital 158, a directive that gives exceptional status to documentation from the Holocaust period.
While this addition is of course good, it soon became clear that it was not sufficient. There are still quite a few documentation collections that are closed and inaccessible, for legal and other reasons. For this reason, the IHRA set up this follow-up project that started operating in 2020 in order to continue to monitor access to Holocaust documentation.
We work in two parallel directions. First, we continue to map and locate notable examples of access to Holocaust collections. Additionally, we try to find ways to solve the challenges to access. This is done first and foremost with the help of the “gatekeepers,” the heads of leading archives that hold Holocaust documentation, worldwide. These “gatekeepers” act as partners of the IHRA Project team in defining the challenges and offering solutions.
Heads of the individual archives are the best experts. They know their collections better than anyone else. This includes leaders of national and international archival system networks, and leading directors of Holocaust archives/collections, as well as institutions like EBNA (European Board of National Archivists) and ICA (International Council of Archives).
When these experts come together, they draw worldwide attention to this important issue. They also take part in formulating “IHRA Guidelines for Holocaust Collections” and disseminating them to archives in their countries, thus allowing quality in-depth research as a basis for education and commemoration.
The IHRA presented its resource on advancing access to Holocaust-related archival material to leading archival experts at the extraordinary European Board of National Archivists/European Archives Group (EBNA/EAG) conference on “Archives and the culture of remembrance.”
Archives play a major role in addressing the great challenges of today. They shape how we think about the past and provide the nuance and knowledge that form the foundation for an inclusive future.
To mark International Holocaust Remembrance Day, the UK government is to make all its records related to the Holocaust available to the public for research and study purposes.
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