As time goes on, the number of Holocaust survivors is dwindling. In their aging years, survivors want to research their pasts by obtaining records of the Holocaust which have been collected and preserved over the years. In 2006, these records were made public after years of survivors’ efforts to obtain them. However, what they have found is that the records are still tightly kept and poorly organized, making them no better off now than they were a year ago.
After the records were opened in May 2006, about 425,000 requests from survivors poured in to access their files. However, some tight rules have been implemented that keep their requests from being fulfilled. The collection was started by the Red Cross after World War II and is over 17 miles long. The papers sit on shelves in Bad Arolsen, Germany, a small town that is extremely difficult for many survivors to get to. The files contained are priceless with information from Holocaust celebrities like Anne Frank and Oskar Schindler to details of unknown victims recording head lice, house sizes, and lists of murdered prisoners. There are also deportation records, imprisonments, slave labor assignments, and displaced person camps established after the war.
The International Trading Service runs the archive. The group was formed after the war to help surviving family members reconnect and inform them of the deceased. Since Bad Arolsen has opened, people have had difficulty receiving the files they have requested by mail, by internet, or by phone.
Steps are now being taken to ratify changes to this policy. France and Italy are the last two countries of the 11 to ratify it by the end of the year. As late as early 2008, the changes will allow for digital copies to be made and circulated around the world. One of each copy will also be made available at the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C.
So far, under 40 percent of the collection has been indexed in its computer database even though 70 percent has been scanned. Most of the available records are from concentration camps searchable through a database available only at the museum. There will also be a hot line that survivors can use to request that archivists look up records and send free photocopies to the survivors and their families. Some survivors are upset that the museum is not making the archive available for public search on the Internet. However, these changes will be a great improvement on their own.
For related articles visit http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07196/801821-82.stm and http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/articles/070513/21archives_3.htm
2 users commented in " Holocaust Files Still Basically Inaccessible Since Being Made Public "
Follow-up comment rss or Leave a TrackbackThere are hundreds of millions of documents and a limited staff in Bad Arolsen, and boxes are scattered through numerous buildings. As it says in the first graph, it’s badly organized, and there are 40 million index cards that need to be scanned first so people can at least figure out where the files are.
Some of the files have been digitized as .jpgs and are not searchable, though they have been placed in specially named file folders. The documents themselves are not searchable, so that if you are looking for a name place or person in the .jpgs, you would first have to convert the file to some sort of text file.
The whole point becomes moot until those files are translated into a format that people can easily use. There is no deliberate hold up–the Italians take years before they ratify a treaty and they are under pressure from the American Gathering of Children of Jewish Holocaust Survivors and Their Descendants. Rabbi Jack Bemporad, a member of the group’s national council, met with officials in Rome and pressed the case. In France, the legislature will meet in the fall.
At this time the people at the USHMM are attempting to find scanning and or transformational software that will quickly turn .jpgs into searchable files. There are hundreds of millions of files and a limited number of people doing the work. It’s not so simple, since we aren’t dealing with English, there are lots of handwritten documents that need transcription to be useful, and to think that this process is deliberately being held up is to deny reality. The information on the .jpgs may even have to be entered manually. These are normal problems concerning old archives that need to be digitized. This was discuseed with leading software companies who have met with museum officials and they are helping seek a quick solution to a very difficult problem.
please change the name of the organization to American Gathering of Jewish Holocaust Survivors and Their Descendants. Sometimes I type to fast and my brain gets ahead of my fingers. Sorry.
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