Statement

2005

International Task Force Reiterates Urgent Need for ITS to Open Archives

The International Holocaust Task Force calls for the opening of the Bad Arolsen Archives.

June 30, 2005

The twenty-country Task Force for International Cooperation on Holocaust Education, Remembrance, and Research, which met in Warsaw on June 30, reiterated its call for immediate steps to be taken to open the archive of the International Tracing Service (ITS) at Bad Arolsen, Germany, to scholars and other researchers.

In this regard, the Task Force welcomed the decision May 30 in Rome of the International Commission of the International Tracing Service to entrust an intergovernmental committee of experts to assess the conditions under which the 30 to 40 million Holocaust-era documents at Bad Arolsen can be made available for research, including a proposal to copy or digitize them.

Considering the time elapsed since the archive was assembled in Germany after World War II and the historical importance of the documents deposited at Bad Arolsen to a fuller understanding of the Holocaust, the Task Force urged the member countries of the International Commission to address this matter on an urgent basis.