We regularly comment on current events that overlap with the IHRA's mandate. Statements can come from the IHRA Chair, IHRA Secretary General, or, when consensus is reached among all Member Countries, by the IHRA in the form of an IHRA Statement.
January 5, 2006. The recent statements of the Iranian President, Mr. Ahmedinajad, calling the Holocaust a myth, and in effect calling for a genocidal policy towards another member state of the UN, namely Israel, were an unacceptable departure. The genocide of the Jewish people at the hand of Nazi Germany in World War II has been recognized by the UN as a defining event in mankind’s history. The Task Force for International Cooperation on Holocaust Education, Remembrance and Research is devoting its best efforts to memorializing, educating about, and researching this series of events, which also have tremendous importance in addressing other genocides and denials of human rights. The Chair of the Task Force calls upon all UN members to respond positively to the call of the UN, and utterly reject the unfortunate statements of the Iranian President.
In my capacity as current Chair of the Task Force for International Cooperation on Holocaust Education, Remembrance and Research, I wish to convey to you my deepest concerns regarding the current crisis in the Darfur region of Sudan.
As you know, the Task Force is committed to the 2000 Stockholm Declaration on the Holocaust, which states that:
“With Humanity still scarred by genocide, ethnic cleansing, racism, antisemitism and xenophobia, the international community shares a solemn responsibility to fight those evils.”
Our role is to ensure that the lessons of the Holocaust, which was recently commemorated at the United Nations, are remembered and passed on to new generations. In this spirit of imparting an educational message in the post-Holocaust world, I strongly believe that it is my duty to share with you my concerns over the tragic consequences for civilian populations of the prolonged conflict in Sudan, in particular in the region of Darfur, and the resulting increase in the number of victims, refugees and internally displaced persons.
The international community certainly must increase its efforts to halt the on-going atrocities in Darfur, to systematically condemn abuses of humanitarian and human rights law in Sudan and to help bring to justice those responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity, “especially those with an ethnic dimension”, as stated in UN Resolution 1556.
September 20, 2005
The Task Force for International Cooperation on Holocaust Education, Remembrance, and Research, comprising government representatives and NGOs from more than 20 countries, expresses its deepest condolences on the passing of Simon Wiesenthal.
A survivor of the Holocaust, Mr. Wiesenthal dedicated his life to raising the awareness of the public and their governments on the importance of prosecuting Nazi criminals and ensuring that justice is dispensed on behalf of the victims of the Holocaust. His contribution to Holocaust education, remembrance, and research is inestimable.
Mr. Wiesenthal’s efforts to preserve the memory of Holocaust victims and to educate future generations about the consequences of racism and antisemitism shall remain a constant inspiration for individuals and organisations committed to perpetuating the legacy of the Holocaust.
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.
December 16, 2004. At their plenary meeting in Trieste on December 16, 2004, in Trieste, Italy, the member countries of the Task Force for International Cooperation on Holocaust Education, Remembrance, and Research called for immediate steps to be taken to inform the public about the long-inaccessible Holocaust-related archives of the International Tracing Service (ITS) of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and to open the archives for research by making copies of the material available at major research centers.
Over six months ago, the ITS and ICRC committed to open the archives by the end of 2004. Since that time, however, the initiative to open the ITS records has failed. In addition, a delegation of Task Force member countries that traveled to Bad Arolsen in October 2004 was refused access to inventories and was unable to obtain responses to any of its inquiries regarding the content and organization of archives or the archives digitization project undertaken several years ago.
In response to these developments and based on their commitment to the principles of the Stockholm Declaration of 2000, which calls for open research access to all archival records relating to the Holocaust, the Task Force calls on the ITS and the ICRC to immediately release information regarding the content of the ITS archives, specifically:
–A complete list of all the archival collections reposing at ITS, including both the original deposits made in the 1950’s and the annual accessions of new documents assembled by the ITS since 1955.
–Descriptions of the organizational units in which documents are held, the approximate amount of documentary material in each unit, and a description of the finding aids, shelf lists, guides, etc. that exist for each unit.
–Information on the archival materials that have already been digitized or are already on microfilm or in microfiche form, including a detailed list showing the name/designation of every archival collection, including the central card file, that has been digitized or duplicated.
The Task Force also calls for immediate research access to the holdings of the ITS archives at major international centers of Holocaust research (e.g., Centre de Documentation Juive Contemporaine in Paris, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC, Yad Vashem in Israel) via digitized or microform copies of the archives to be deposited at those sites and made available to scholars in accordance with the relevant national laws and archival practices of the country where each center is located.
The Task Force calls on countries represented on the International Commission of the ITS to support and facilitate achievement of these goals.
A White Paper entitled “International Tracing Service (ITS), Bad Arolsen, Germany,” prepared for the June 2004 meeting of the Task Force for International Cooperation on Holocaust Education, Remembrance, and Research in Rome is available upon request.
June 9, 2004
At their plenary meeting in Rome on June 9, 2004, the member countries of the Task Force for International Cooperation on Holocaust Education, Remembrance, and Research welcomed the commitment of the International Commission of the International Tracing Service, together with the International Tracing Service (ITS) and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to establish an open access regime to the Bad Arolsen archives for scholars and other researchers by the end of 2004.
Under their commitment to the principles of the Stockholm Declaration of 2000, the members of the Task Force urge that this important depository of Holocaust and displaced persons documentation become available for purposes of historical research.
To being a dialogue with the ITS, and to gain a clearer understanding of the content and organization of the archives, and of the digitization process underway, representatives from several Task Force countries plan to visit Bad Arolsen in July. The Task Force will also extend an invitation to ITS officials to brief the Task Force at its next plenary meeting on progress being made in opening the Bad Arolsen archives for historical research.
