FAS | Secrecy | Congressional Documents || Index | Search |

Testimony of Dr. Lewis Bellardo
Deputy Archivist of the United States

Before the Subcommittee on Government Management,
Information, and Technology
Committee on Government Reform and Oversight

on the Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act

July 14, 1998

Mr. Chairman, Congressman Kucinich, and Members of the committee, I would like to thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today to present the views of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) on the Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act. This legislation will continue the work that has been championed by you, Mr. Chairman, and your colleagues, Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney, Congressman Jim Leach, Senator Mike DeWine, Senator Patrick Moynihan, and, last but certainly not least, Senator Alfonse D'Amato. Because of your leadership on this issue, many survivors of the Holocaust and Nazi persecution will receive long-delayed justice and restitution. In addition, we are relearning a lesson that I know is quite familiar to you, Mr. Chairman. It is the lesson that it is often the documentary record of our past that opens the doors of justice; it is the essential evidence preserved by the National Archives and Records Administration that ultimately documents the rights and privileges of our citizens. We take responsibility for the preservation of and access to those records very seriously. I would like to present a very brief overview of the role that NARA has played in this important issue and then present information on the remaining records that would be impacted by the legislation being examined today.

Nazi Gold

The search for what has become known as "Nazi Gold" records began in March 1996, when researchers from Senator Alfonse D'Amato's office began coming to the National Archives at College Park, Maryland, looking for records relating to World War II-era dormant bank accounts of Jews in Swiss banks. Within weeks the research expanded into issues surrounding looted Nazi gold and other assets. By midsummer 1996, the research room at College Park was the host to at least 15 researchers daily--sometimes as many as 25--conducting research in "Nazi Gold" records. These records, contained within 30 record groups and comprising some 15 million pages of documentation, were like a magnet, drawing increasing numbers of researchers as the summer progressed.

In the early fall of 1996, President Clinton asked then Under Secretary of Commerce Stuart E. Eizenstat, who also serves as Special Envoy of the Department of State on Property Restitution in Central and Eastern Europe, to prepare a report that would "describe, to the fullest extent possible, U.S. and Allied efforts to recover and restore this gold [gold the Nazis had looted from the central banks of occupied Europe, as well as gold taken from individual victims of Nazi persecution] and other assets stolen by Nazi Germany." Eizenstat formed an 11-agency Interagency Group on Nazi Assets, including NARA, to do the research and produce the report, under the direction of William Z. Slany, Historian, Department of State. Slany formed his research team, consisting of researchers from the Departments of Defense, Treasury, Justice, and State, the U.S. Holocaust Museum, the Central Intelligence Agency, and the Federal Reserve Board. They soon made the National Archives at College Park their home.

During the next five months the demands on NARA's staff were enormous. Not only were both government and non-government researchers making requests for records, often the same records at the same time, but also relevant records were accessioned from the Department of the Treasury in November 1996, and the Federal Reserve Board in March 1997, and declassified under great pressure to make them immediately available. In addition, the media discovered that NARA was a major part of this developing story and requests for information, interviews, and photo shoots mushroomed.

The First Eizenstat Report

On May 7, 1997, the Interagency Group on Nazi Assets, headed by Ambassador Eizenstat, issued its report entitled U.S. and Allied Efforts To Recover and Restore Gold and Other Assets Stolen or Hidden by Germany During World War II: Preliminary Study. The report was based primarily on NARA's holdings. As an appendix, NARA staff prepared a 300-page finding aid to the records at College Park and both the report and appendix were immediately made available at the Department of State's website. When the research widened to more countries and more subjects, NARA issued a 300-page supplemental finding aid in the fall of 1997. It was placed on the Department of State's website in November 1997. A revised and expanded finding aid, some 750 pages, was placed on the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum's website in March 1998 at www.ushmm.org/assets/nazigold.htm.

New Records

In 1996, the Clinton administration urged agencies to transfer relevant records to the National Archives. In 1997, the Central Intelligence Agency transferred Office of Strategic Services records, as well as biographical profile documentation on Thomas McKittrick, the wartime president of the Bank for International Settlements, and Emil Puhl, the Reichsbank vice-president. The National Security Agency, on the day before the report was released, transferred to NARA copies of Army Security Agency intercepts of communications between the Swiss delegation in Washington and the Swiss Foreign Ministry in Bern, Switzerland. Although their records are not federal records, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York sent to NARA two cubic feet of copies of pertinent materials. During the summer of 1997, the Department of Justice transferred to NARA a major body of Office of Alien Property Trading With the Enemy Act case files. All of the records accessioned were immediately declassified, if this had not already been done, and made available to researchers.

Reichsbank Records

Among the most significant bodies of records uncovered have been those of the Reichsbank's Precious Metals Department. These records were greatly sought after during the spring of 1997 by two Federal agencies and other researchers because it was believed these records would document conclusively how much of the looted German gold acquired by the Allies was composed of non-monetary gold; that is, gold that came from victims of Nazi persecution. The records, discovered on April 1, 1997, consisted of some 70 reels of microfilm contained in a small box within a recently accessioned Federal Record Center box of Treasury Department records. There was great excitement. The microfilm, which dated back to 1948 and was not accessioned by NARA until November 1996, was not in the best condition. However, NARA reproduced the microfilm and made it available to researchers on April 4, 1997. Interestingly, the story does not end at this point, because in 1948 the US Army did not microfilm all of the records. Within a month of the filming, all of the original paper records, both those filmed and not filmed, were turned over to the successor bank, and they have since disappeared. Thus, during the past year there has been a search throughout Europe to locate the original records.

More Researchers

In the wake of the Eizenstat report and increased accessions of pertinent records, more researchers found their way to the National Archives at College Park. Not only were the researchers, including claimants, continuing to seek information about looted Nazi gold and related topics, but the boundaries of research had widened to include questions relating to looted securities, looted works of art, unclaimed and unpaid insurance policies, refugee policies, slave labor practices, and wartime trade between the neutrals and the Axis powers.

Law firms and other research teams involved in class action litigation relating to dormant accounts in Swiss banks and unpaid insurance policies of victims of Nazi persecution have found NARA's holdings critical to their research. Jewish organizations, banking organizations, and art restitution research teams have also used NARA's holdings.

Foreign researchers have found NARA an important resource to supplement the information available in the archival records in their own countries. During the past year there have been dozens of private researchers from various countries, including Austria, Sweden, the Netherlands, France, Great Britain, Germany, and Switzerland. During the summer of 1997, six researchers from Sweden made their home at Archives II for several weeks, looking at records relating to their country. In February 1998, researchers representing commissions from Spain, Portugal, and Argentina began their research. Representatives of foreign banks and foreign archivists, including those from Israel and Sweden have also sought information.

NARA and the Inter Agency Group on Nazi Assets

Within days of issuing its first report, the Inter Agency Group on Nazi Assets was asked to prepare another report. Thus, in the summer of 1997, researchers from the Department of State, the Central Intelligence Agency, and the National Security Agency, representing the Interagency Group on Nazi Assets, began to do their research again with NARA's assistance. On June 2, 1998, the Interagency Group published its second report entitled U.S. and Allied Wartime and Postwar Relations and Negotiations with Argentina, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, and Turkey on looted Gold and German External Assets and U.S. Concerns About the Fate of the Wartime Ustasha Treasury.

The Future

Interest in the Nazi Gold issue remains high throughout the world. Commissions have been appointed in Sweden, Portugal, Argentina, France, Belgium, Norway, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and half a dozen other countries to address issues relating to victims of Nazi persecution, postwar restitution efforts, and dormant bank accounts. Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright, speaking to the Swiss Parliament on November 15, 1997, said that doing all we can to discover the truth about the Holocaust and events related to it, and acting on what we learn, are among the vital unfinished tasks of this century. This legislation, the Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act, is the next step in ensuring that the true history of the War and the Holocaust is publicly told. Building on the research that has already been conducted at the National Archives and Records Administration, which exposed the true actions of countries that collaborated with the Nazi's, this bill will expose the actions of individuals who committed heinous crimes against fellow human beings in the name of the Third Reich.

War Crimes Disclosure Act

We are gratified that the authors of this legislation have recognized the role NARA has played in bringing these issues to light by recommending the appointment of the Archivist of the United States to be a member of the Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Working Group. Our staff are among the leading authorities on what records exist to document the actions of Nazi war criminals.

NARA holds over 5,000 cubic feet, or roughly 5 million pages of records and hundreds of rolls of microfilm containing information on World War II war crimes in Europe and Japan. These records come from several different sources, including the Records of the Judge Advocate General (Army); Records of U.S. Army Commands (1942 -- ); Records of Allied Operational and Occupational Headquarters, World War II; Records of the Judge Advocate General (Navy); and a collection of records entitled the National Archives Collection of World War II War Crimes Records, which contains a mix of material including records of the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg and records captured from the Germans during and after the war. In addition to these sources, there are small groups of records scattered throughout our World War II-era holdings documenting the liberation of concentration camps and interviews with former prisoners of the camps, interrogations of captured Nazis on war crimes and intelligence matters, and even files on the First Army's investigation of the "Malmedy Massacre" of American POW's during the Battle of the Bulge, and other investigations of the mistreatment of Allied prisoners.

In addition, records that have been recently declassified in the search for information on the Nazi gold issue will serve to create a wider view of the activities of Nazi war criminals and their treatment of Holocaust victims. As this investigation has progressed and widened, the body of records relating to "Nazi gold" has steadily grown, and now encompasses records from many areas including military records from the Records of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff; Records of the Office of Strategic Services; Records of the Secretary of War; Records of the U.S. Occupation Headquarters, World War II; Records of the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations; and the National Archives Collection of Foreign Records Seized. Civilian agency records used in the Nazi gold search include: General Records of the Department of State; Records of the High Commissioner for Germany (HICOG); Records of the Department of the Treasury; General Records of the Department of Justice; Records of the Federal Bureau of Investigation; and Records of the Department of Commerce. Information was also located in several World War II-era agencies such as the Records of the Office of War Information and the Records of the Office of Censorship. In addition, information was drawn from the Records of the Central Intelligence Agency, the Records of the National Security Agency, and the Records of the Federal Reserve System. Non-record material donated to NARA by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York also contains much information on the spread of Nazi looted assets in the United States. We currently estimate that our holdings on this subject contain 15 million pages. All of NARA's holdings on World War II war crimes and on the Nazi gold issue have been reviewed for declassification, and roughly 98% of these records have been declassified.

I would like to say that the one year deadline in the legislation is rather tight. This could have a resource impact on the member-agencies of the Interagency Working Group. Depending upon the volume of Nazi war crimes records from agencies that will fall under the purview of this act, staff demands could be substantial. The Interagency Working Group, or the member agencies, will need funding in order to carry out this project within the deadline set forth in the bill.

This legislation will also have a resource impact on NARA as we re-review our classified holdings on Nazi war crimes, and as war crimes records from other agencies are transferred to us. This legislation will strain NARA's declassification program which is already under extreme pressure to meet the requirements of the President's executive order on declassification. This problem exists for all agencies government-wide.

Once again, Mr. Chairman, I thank you for your leadership on this issue and for inviting me to testify here today. I also would like to say a special "thank you" to the staff of the National Archives and Records Administration for their tireless efforts during these past months as this issue has grown in activity beyond all expectation. I would particularly like to recognize the work of one of our archivists, Dr. Greg Bradsher, who produced the 700 page finding aid for the Nazi gold records, which he wrote while continuing to work with sometimes overwhelming numbers of researchers on this issue. NARA applauds this effort and looks forward to receiving into our collection records of other agencies that we have not yet accessioned that document war crimes. This effort can only serve to create a more honest and complete picture of the events of the Second World War. I would be happy to answer any questions the committee might have.



FAS | Secrecy | Congressional Documents || Index | Search |