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At the outset, Mr. Chairman and Congresswoman Maloney it has been your bipartisan leadership over the last two years that brings us to this hearing today. You have been the champions of this legislation through both the 104th and 105th Congresses. Without you and your very able staff, this legislation would not be approaching enactment into law. H.R. 4007 contains many refinements proposed by your staff that improve upon the Senate Bill as it was reported out of the Senate Judiciary Committee. H.R. 4007 is a comprehensive Bill that is long over due. I again complement both you, Mr. Chairman, and Congresswoman Maloney for your leadership on this issue. The Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act will lead to the release of U.S. government-held records of Nazi war criminals, the Nazi Holocaust, and the trafficking of Nazi-held assets taken from the victims of the Nazi terror.

Just three years ago, we celebrated the 50th anniversary of the end of the Second World War, and with it, the Nazis' death grip on an entire continent. After all these years, new shockingly detailed accounts of the Nazi Holocaust have recently come to our attention.

We have learned so much. Yet, if the last few years are any indication, we still have so much more to learn. After the fall of communist rule, Russia and several former Soviet-bloc nations opened volumes of secret files on Nazi war crimes. Argentina has cooperated in the public release of its files. British government records are being declassified and made available for public scrutiny. And over the course of last year, Swiss banks and the Swiss government have been under intense international pressure to make a full accounting of unclaimed funds belonging to Holocaust victims, as well as Nazi assets that may have once belonged to Holocaust victims.

Mr. Chairman, here at home, our own government has been gradually making records available about what it knew of Nazi-related activities and atrocities. Last year, a government-conducted study revealed new information about what the U.S. Government knew regarding the transfer and flow of funds held by Nazi officials. This report found that the U.S. government was aware that the Nazi mint took gold stolen from European central banks and melted it together with gold obtained in horrible fashion -- from tooth-fillings, wedding bands and other items seized from death-camp victims.

Mr. Chairman, the photos I have on display are several aerial U.S. intelligence photographs taken in 1944 of Auschwitz, with prisoners being led to the gas chambers. These pictures were discovered by photo analysts from the Central Intelligence Agency in 1978. They confirm what we had heard from the Polish underground that a "death camp" did in fact exist at Auschwitz. They also demonstrated that our government had photographs of these camps as these atrocities were occurring.

These pictures tell a grisly story. How many more exist? With the legislation before us, we intend to answer that question.

Both Congress and the President have taken action to promote the release of government-held records during this tragic era. On April 17, 1995, the President issued an executive order calling for the release of national security data and information older than 25 years. Late in the 104th Congress, thanks to the work of my friend from New York, Senator Moynihan and Congresswoman Maloney and you, M r. Chairman, we passed a sense of the Congress resolution, which stated that any U.S. Government agencies should make public any records in its possession about individuals who are alleged to have committed Nazi war crimes. The President agreed, noting that learning the remaining secrets about the Holocaust is in the clear public interest.

The Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act is designed to put the concerns expressed by the last Congress into law. First, the bill would allow for expedited processing of FOIA requests of survivors of Nazi persecution. These individuals are growing older each day and the time to obtain answers to questions that have followed them will soon end. We owe to those who suffered and those who seek to prevent future genocides the disclosure of all the records in the United States on this issue.

Second, the bill would establish the Nazi War Criminal Records Interagency Working Group. This Working Group would to the greatest extent possible locate, identify, inventory, declassify and make available for the public all Nazi war records held by the United States. This means that all materials would be required to be released in their entirety--unless a Federal agency head concludes that the release of all or part of these records would compromise privacy or national security interests. The agency head must notify Congress of any determination to not release records. Thus, we in the Congress would be a position to review the material being withheld to ensure that it was being done for valid reasons consistent with this legislation. The Director of the Holocaust Museum, the Archivist of the United States, the Historian of the Department of State are specifically appointed to sit on the task force because of their unique expertise on this subject. Further, to help the interagency group complete its task, the President is authorized to appoint the head of any other Agency and up to three additional people with expertise on this subject who can assist with the identification and disclosure of relevant documents. This pro-active search is necessary because a full government search and inventory has never been completed. For example, some documents that surfaced last year in connection with a search coordinated by Stuart Eizenstat, then Under Secretary of Commerce, were found in holdings related to Southeast Asia.

Our bill is targeted toward two classes of Nazi-related materials: First, war crimes information regarding Nazi persecutions; and two, any information related to transactions involving assets of Holocaust and other Nazi victims.

In summary, this bill will strike a clear balance between our government's legitimate privacy and national security interests and the people's desire to know the truth about Nazi atrocities. These records, once released, will be held in a repository at the National Archives.

Let me enumerate several changes which we have made since the bill was unanimously reported out by the full Judiciary Committee last March. First, Mr. Chairman, these changes came about because the staff on this Subcommittee worked collaboratively with the Judiciary Committee to improve the Committee bill. Further, representatives of the World Jewish Congress provided detailed suggestions for improvements in the Senate Bill which were incorporated prior to its final passage by the Senate.

There is one provision that is particularly noteworthy that I would like to raise. Records held by the Office of Special Investigations (OSI) of the Department of Justice are specifically exempted by this bill to ensure that we do not harm any ongoing investigations or prosecutions by OSI. Nonetheless, because of the substantial expertise at OSI, it can reasonably be expected that OSI will be asked to assist with the review of records held by other agencies. OSI is currently engaged in an effort to close ongoing investigations and prosecutions of alleged war criminals. Thus, to ensure that the high priority investigations continue and all relevant documents found during the search are quickly reviewed for disclassification, my Senate colleagues and I asked the Appropriations Committee to provide a small increase of $2 million in OSl's budget to enable the staff to take on and complete both of these tasks. I am happy to report that the Senate Appropriations Committee approved this request, which is a more than 50% increase in OSl's budget. This was accomplished in a very tight budgetary environment where the 602(b) budget allocations for the Department of Justice barely increased this year.

Section 2(b)(1) was revised to extend the life of the interagency group from one to three years in recognition of the fact that there are extensive document holdings that must be reviewed. The bulk of this work should be done in the first year. The three year life of the Working Group cannot become an excuse to proceed slowly.

This bill not only addresses the acts of Nazi War Criminal, but also addresses those who transfered, sold or otherwise disposed of assets involuntarily taken from persecuted persons by, under the direction of, or on behalf of, or under the authority of the former Nazi Government of Germany or any nation then allied with that government.

This bill is a bipartisan effort to ensure the Federal Government has done all it can to ensure Holocaust victims and their families can obtain the answers they need.

The clock is running, and time is running out for so many victims of the Holocaust. They, and history itself, deserve to know as much as possible about this tragic chapter in the story of humanity.

Thank you for allowing me to appear.

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