Michele
12-24-2006, 01:13 AM
(CBS) For the first time, secrets of the Nazi Holocaust that have been hidden away for more than 60 years are finally being made available to the public. We’re not talking about a missing filing cabinet - we’re talking about thousands of filing cabinets, holding 50 million pages. It's Hitler’s secret archive.
The Nazis were famous for record keeping but what 60 Minutes found ran from the bizarre to the horrifying. This Holocaust history was discovered by the Allies in dozens of concentration camps, as Germany fell in the spring of 1945.
As correspondent Scott Pelley reports, the documents were taken to a town in the middle of Germany, called Bad Arolsen, where they were sorted, filed and locked way, never to be seen by the public until now.
The storerooms are immense: 16 miles of shelves holding the stories of 17 million victims – not only Jews, but slave laborers, political prisoners and homosexuals. To open the files is to see the Holocaust staring back like it was yesterday: strange pink Gestapo arrest warrants as lethal as a death sentence, jewelry lost as freedom ended at the gates of an extermination camp. Time stopped here in 1945.
snip
When the archive is finally available, researchers will have their first chance to see a unique collection of documents on concentration camps, slave labor camps and displaced persons. From toneless lists and heartrending testimony, a skilled historian may be able to stitch together a new perspective on the 20th century's darkest years from the viewpoint of its millions of victims.
cbs (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/12/14/60minutes/main2267927_page2.shtml)
THAT THESE DOCUMENTS WERE GOING TO BE OPENED WAS ANNOUNCED THIS PAST MAY 2006
Punctilious Nazi archive of death
The world's largest archive of Nazi German documents will be opened to historians for the first time, after an agreement reached by the 11 countries that control it.
The announcement was made after two days of talks by diplomats from the 11 countries, who were meeting in Luxembourg.
For six decades, the archive - housed in a storeroom in the sleepy Baroque town of Bad Arolsen, in central Germany - has been used exclusively by a Red Cross agency that helps people trace loved ones who went missing during World War II.
It has taken several years of negotiations to reach this agreement, and the talks in Luxembourg also went on later than expected as diplomats discussed the details of the deal.
It means historians will for the first time gain access to the files, which contain personal details on more than 17 million people who went through the concentration camp and slave labour system.
BBC (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4988378.stm)
The Nazis were famous for record keeping but what 60 Minutes found ran from the bizarre to the horrifying. This Holocaust history was discovered by the Allies in dozens of concentration camps, as Germany fell in the spring of 1945.
As correspondent Scott Pelley reports, the documents were taken to a town in the middle of Germany, called Bad Arolsen, where they were sorted, filed and locked way, never to be seen by the public until now.
The storerooms are immense: 16 miles of shelves holding the stories of 17 million victims – not only Jews, but slave laborers, political prisoners and homosexuals. To open the files is to see the Holocaust staring back like it was yesterday: strange pink Gestapo arrest warrants as lethal as a death sentence, jewelry lost as freedom ended at the gates of an extermination camp. Time stopped here in 1945.
snip
When the archive is finally available, researchers will have their first chance to see a unique collection of documents on concentration camps, slave labor camps and displaced persons. From toneless lists and heartrending testimony, a skilled historian may be able to stitch together a new perspective on the 20th century's darkest years from the viewpoint of its millions of victims.
cbs (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/12/14/60minutes/main2267927_page2.shtml)
THAT THESE DOCUMENTS WERE GOING TO BE OPENED WAS ANNOUNCED THIS PAST MAY 2006
Punctilious Nazi archive of death
The world's largest archive of Nazi German documents will be opened to historians for the first time, after an agreement reached by the 11 countries that control it.
The announcement was made after two days of talks by diplomats from the 11 countries, who were meeting in Luxembourg.
For six decades, the archive - housed in a storeroom in the sleepy Baroque town of Bad Arolsen, in central Germany - has been used exclusively by a Red Cross agency that helps people trace loved ones who went missing during World War II.
It has taken several years of negotiations to reach this agreement, and the talks in Luxembourg also went on later than expected as diplomats discussed the details of the deal.
It means historians will for the first time gain access to the files, which contain personal details on more than 17 million people who went through the concentration camp and slave labour system.
BBC (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4988378.stm)