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[Congressional Bills 110th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[S. Res. 141 Introduced in Senate (IS)]

110th CONGRESS
  1st Session
S. RES. 141

  Urging all member countries of the International Commission of the 
   International Tracing Service who have yet to ratify the May 2006 
   amendments to the 1955 Bonn Accords to expedite the ratification 
 process to allow for open access to the Holocaust archives located at 
                         Bad Arolsen, Germany.

_______________________________________________________________________

                   IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES

                             April 10, 2007

 Mrs. Clinton (for herself, Mr. Brown, Mr. Lieberman, Mr. Kennedy, Mr. 
    Lautenberg, Mr. Kerry, Mr. Schumer, and Mr. Dodd) submitted the 
 following resolution; which was referred to the Committee on Foreign 
                               Relations

_______________________________________________________________________

                               RESOLUTION

 
  Urging all member countries of the International Commission of the 
   International Tracing Service who have yet to ratify the May 2006 
   amendments to the 1955 Bonn Accords to expedite the ratification 
 process to allow for open access to the Holocaust archives located at 
                         Bad Arolsen, Germany.

Whereas the International Tracing Service (ITS) archives located in Bad Arolsen, 
        Germany, which are administered by the International Committee of the 
        Red Cross, contain an estimated 50,000,000 records on the fates of some 
        17,500,000 individual victims of Nazi war crimes;
Whereas the ITS archives at Bad Arolsen remain the largest closed Holocaust-era 
        archives in the world;
Whereas, although access to individual records can be requested by Holocaust 
        survivors and their descendants, many who have requested information 
        from the ITS archives have reported facing significant delays and even 
        unresponsiveness;
Whereas the ITS archives remain inaccessible to researchers and research 
        institutions;
Whereas the Agreement Constituting an International Commission for the 
        International Tracing Service, signed at Bonn June 6, 1955 (6 UST 6186) 
        (commonly known as the ``Bonn Accords'') established an international 
        commission of 11 member countries (Belgium, France, Germany, Greece, 
        Israel, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Poland, the United Kingdom, 
        and the United States) charged with overseeing the administration of the 
        ITS Holocaust archives;
Whereas, following years of delay, in May 2006 in Luxembourg, the International 
        Commission of the ITS agreed upon amendments to the Bonn Accords that 
        would allow researchers to use the archives and would allow each member 
        country of the International Commission to receive digitized copies of 
        archive materials and make the records available to researchers under 
        the respective national laws relating to archives and privacy;
Whereas the May 2006 amendments to the Bonn Accords require each of the 11 
        member countries of the International Commission to ratify the 
        amendments before open access to the Holocaust archives is permitted;
Whereas, although the final signature was affixed to the amendments in October 
        2006, only 5 out of the 11 member countries of the International 
        Commission, the United States, Israel, Poland, the Netherlands, and the 
        United Kingdom, have ratified the amendments;
Whereas the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum has for years been working 
        tirelessly to provide public access to the materials in the Bad Arolsen 
        archives;
Whereas, on March 8, 2007, representatives from the 11 member countries of the 
        International Commission of the ITS met in the Netherlands and reviewed 
        the current ratification status of each country and the ratification 
        process in its entirety;
Whereas it is a moral and humanitarian imperative to permit public access to the 
        millions of Holocaust records housed at Bad Arolsen;
Whereas it is essential that researchers obtain access while Holocaust survivors 
        are living, so that the researchers can benefit in their scholarly work 
        from the insights of eyewitnesses;
Whereas, in the aftermath of the Holocaust, there have been far too many 
        instances of survivors and heirs of Holocaust victims being refused 
        their moral and legal right to information, for restitution purposes, 
        slave labor compensation, and personal closure;
Whereas opening the historic records is a vital contribution to the world's 
        collective memory and understanding of the Holocaust and efforts to 
        ensure that the anti-Semitism that made such horrors possible is never 
        again permitted to take hold;
Whereas anti-Semitism has seen a resurgence in recent years, and as recently as 
        December 2006, the President of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, held the 
        second Holocaust denial conference in Tehran in one year; and
Whereas in light of this conference, the anti-Semitic rhetoric of President 
        Ahmadinejad, and a resurgence of anti-Semitism in part of the world, the 
        opening of the archives at Bad Arolsen could not be more urgent: Now, 
        therefore, be it
    Resolved, That the Senate--
            (1) commends in the strongest terms all countries that have 
        to date ratified the amendments to the Agreement Constituting 
        an International Commission for the International Tracing 
        Service, signed at Bonn June 6, 1955 (6 UST 6186) (commonly 
        known as the ``Bonn Accords'') to allow for open access to the 
        Holocaust archives of the International Tracing Service (ITS) 
        located at Bad Arolsen, Germany;
            (2) commends the countries that have committed to expedite 
        the process of releasing the archives and expects those 
        countries to abide by their commitments;
            (3) strongly urges all countries that have to yet to ratify 
        the amendments to abide by the treaty obligations made in May 
        2006 and to expedite the ratification of the amendments;
            (4) strongly urges all member countries of the 
        International Commission of the ITS to consider the short time 
        left to Holocaust survivors and unanimously consent to open the 
        ITS archives should all countries not ratify the amendments by 
        May 2007;
            (5) expresses the hope that bureaucratic and diplomatic 
        processes will not further delay this process; and
            (6) refuses to forget the murder of 6,000,000 Jews and more 
        than 5,000,000 other victims during the Holocaust by Nazi 
        perpetrators and their collaborators.
                                 <all>
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