Bad Arolsen Archive questionmark

[phylo_roadking]

I'm sitting here listing to a news item on BBC News24 about the opening of the Bad Arsolen Archive to the "public" today....

....and I've just heard a comment "...the Archive documents are currently being digitized so they can be uploaded to Holocaust Museums across the world." (The BBC used the word, not me)

Why just these Museums? Surely this is a prima facie historical resource for study...if it's digitized, shouldn't be accesible by all for study?

While the documents may contain personal data about those in the camps, the documents themselves were - like it or not - the property not of those individuals but the German state, so there's no question of ownership. At what point do rights over the data stop and this material lapse into the public domain?

And IF its a proper question of that - what about the OTHER material? The movement records, train scheduiles, commissary receipts, SS personnel records, camp medical records, etc. etc.?

[phylo_roadking]

thankfully it appears to be an "as well as" not an "instead of"

Dear Sir,

thank your for your message.

Plans for the ITS are unchanged, and there will be access to the archives
in Arolsen for researchers as soon as all the 11 member states of the ITS
Commission have ratified both Protocols amending the 1955 Bonn Agreements,
which is expected in the coming months.

Apart from this, the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, Yad Vashem in
Israel, and other institutions in the member states that have requested a
digital copy of the ITS materials, will also give access to researchers
once the ratification process is completed.

As you know, victims and their families have always had access to the ITS
archives since 1955. In particular, they are welcome at the ITS in Bad
Arolsen at any time to access their own files.

For more information, please contact the ITS at Arolsen
(http://www.its-arolsen.org)

Best regards
Beat Schweizer
Deputy Director-General
International Committee of the Red Cross