Commission to decide when to release records

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands (AP) -- As the Third Reich headed to defeat in World War II, the Germans burned millions of records to cover up history's worst genocide. But the fraction that survived was enough to make up the largest Nazi archive in existence.
This week, efforts to lift the 52-year-old blanket of secrecy from this historical treasure are likely to take a big step forward.
The 11-nation commission governing the International Tracing Service, an arm of the International Committee of the Red Cross, meets in Amsterdam to and Tuesday to decide when and how to make electronic copies of its files available to researchers.
So far the archive of 30 million to 50 million pages in Bad Arolsen, Germany, has been used only to help reunite families and verify restitution claims. The files were closed in 1955 because it was feared that unfettered access could violate the privacy of Holocaust victims, both living and dead.
But survivors have been pressing for direct access, unsatisfied with the formalistic and partial answers to questions about the persecution they suffered. So a year ago the commission decided to unlock the vast storehouse for research.
Primary function
As the survivor generation dwindles, the decision to digitally scan the documents and make them available will shift the archive's primary function from a humanitarian service to a historical resource.
"We have been living in splendid isolation all these years. Now we have been told we must be part of the system," said the archive's director, Reto Meister.
"If we can network, our worth multiplies," Meister, a former Swiss diplomat, said in a recent interview. "You have to share your wealth."
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