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by Stewart Ain
Not long ago, a young man researching his family on the Internet came across the original document of his grandfather's deportation by the Nazis. Still, finding such a document now often is hit or miss.
In an attempt to develop a system that would catalog all Holocaust-related material, as well to establish a working relationship among the institutions worldwide that house such information, the Claims Conference brought together this week experts from 27 institutions for the first International Shoah Archivists Working Forum.
“This material has the power to invigorate a generation, to help them understand what happened to communities that perished, and to build a commitment to the Jewish community of the future,” said Greg Schneider, chief operating officer of the Claims Conference.
Roman Kent, a survivor who is treasurer of the Claims Conference, told the archivists that their work comes at a time when some are denying the Holocaust. Kent said their job is to “preserve the true memory of what happened. … If we don't have that memory, then Hitler killed us three times: he killed our parents, us and history.”
“We have reached a consensus that all material needs to be microfilmed and digitized,” said Richard Breitman, a professor of history at the American University in Washington.
Digitizing the material enables it to be placed on the Internet. Asked if there was concern that such material would then be subject to hackers who deny the Holocaust, Paul Shapiro, director for the Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, said it would not.
“Getting the documentation in people's hands undercuts them,” he said.
Breitman said that during the first session of the conference Tuesday that dealt with digitizing documents, “we were tossing around an estimate of 200 million pages of documents” dealing with the Holocaust that are currently on file in museums and institutions worldwide.
“If one could figure out how to put it on a Web site, it would be necessary to provide a guide for viewers,” he said. “That would involve a choice of deciding who the audience is and what kind of resources need to be devoted to this.”
Shapiro pointed out that there are millions of documents “in local, regional and private archives. … We don't have an indication of where it all is. Many institutions have records but no one knows what is there. This conference is bringing to the surface all of the work that needs to be done to make accessible all of the Holocaust documentation in the world.”
Since 1997, the Claims Conference has allocated more than $18 million towards the process of rescuing, preserving and categorizing Holocaust-related archival material worldwide.
Gideon Taylor, executive director of the Claims Conference, said that because his organization plays such a major role in funding the documentation of the Holocaust, “we are a good organization to bring together different archivists so we can go forward in a coordinated and planned way.”
Yaacov Lozowick, director of the archives division of Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, said that because of its financial clout, the Claims Conference has the power to significantly change the field of Holocaust documentation.
“What they are trying to do through the archivists is figure out what would be the best way to get the biggest bang for the buck,” he said. “They would like us to work together so that the Jewish people will not be wasting funds and duplicating efforts. They are trying to guide this field in a rational way. …”
Lozowick pointed out, “No single institution knows what the other is doing, so we are all coming together to learn about each other and then rationalize the next steps.”
He noted that Yad Vashem and the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum are working together to collect documents, and that Yad Vashem has discussed cataloguing with the Shoah Visual History Foundation in Los Angeles.
“If you can get everybody pulling together, you dramatically cut down on the competition, which would be good for the field,” Lozowick said.
Jacques Fredj, director of the Center for Contemporary Jewish Documentation in Paris, noted that his institution was established in 1943 by the Jewish underground to “preserve what was happening in France.” It is the oldest institution to document the Holocaust.
“Nobody knew there was extermination [going on], but everybody felt a strong threat to the Jewish community,” Fredj explained. “The French Jewish leadership collected newspapers and laws that were posted and had a photo archive.”
Fredj said that with the help of the French underground, Gestapo files were saved along with the original deportation papers of Jews from France, as well as documents from the French police and the Vichy government.
“After the war, we went to the Nuremberg trials with our documents,” he said.
In an unrelated development, Claims Conference representatives flew to Germany last week to appeal the handling of social security pensions for 60,000 Jews who worked in ghettos during the Holocaust. The trip came after the organization was alarmed by the large number of Jews who were denied benefits by Germany.
“We felt that the pension authorities were not interpreting the law correctly and were being unduly restrictive,” Taylor said.
He said a German court ruled that Jews who were paid for work they performed while in ghettos were entitled to collect social security.
“The deadline for applying has passed and the first decisions have started to come from the regional social security pension authorities in Germany,” Taylor said, noting that there are a dozen authorities.
But because of all the rejections, Taylor said his organization arranged to meet with Ulla Schmidt, Germany's minister of health and social welfare. Taylor, Claims Conference president Israel Singer and several survivors made the case to Schmidt, Taylor said.
He said that some of the pension authorities decided that anyone who was below the age of 14 when they worked in the ghettos is not entitled to collect social security because they could not have performed the work required to get social security pensions.
“The survivors explained to her their own experiences,” Taylor said. “They explained how they and others who were younger had indeed worked in the ghetto.”
Some of the pension authorities disqualified claims on the grounds that the applicants were not paid money. But Taylor said his group argued that they were given food, which should be considered a form of payment “that would meet the requirements of the law and thus make them eligible” for a pension. He noted that some pension authorities had agreed with that interpretation while others had not; those whose applications were denied for any reason should immediately appeal.
Although the pension authorities are independent, Taylor said Schmidt has oversight responsibility and “has indicated that she would take up the issue with them. … This is an important priority for us and we will continue to pursue it vigorously.”
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March 2004 Conference 
