The public forum at the Wiesenthal Center will feature short presentations from David Alvarez, professor of Political Science at Saint Mary's College; Martin Mendelsohn, Wiesenthal Center general counsel and former Office of Special Investigations director; Michael Berenbaum, director of the Shoah Foundation; Louis Marchesano, curator of visual resources at the Getty Research Center; and Mark Weitzman, director of the New York City Office of the Wiesenthal Center. Members of the public will be invited to address questions or statements to the experts and the IWG during the second half of the meeting.
The IWG is required to identify and recommend for declassification and release U.S. Government records that are still security-classified and relate to Nazi war criminals, war crimes, persecution, and looted assets during Hitler's rule. The IWG members are the Archivist of the United States, the Secretary of Defense, the Attorney General, the Director of Central Intelligence, the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Director of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, the Historian of the Department of State; former Representative Elizabeth Holtzman of the New York law firm of Herrick, Feinstein; Richard Ben-Veniste of the Washington law firm of Weil, Gotshal & Manges; and Thomas Baer, Producer/Partner, Steinhardt Baer Pictures Company. The Working Group is chaired by National Archives Assistant Archivist Michael J. Kurtz.
To carry out its mission, the IWG plans a series of public forums to solicit the advice of scholars and knowledgeable members of the public about wartime and post-war programs, events, and individuals that may have lead to the creation of security-classified records.
For more information about the IWG, contact the National Archives Public Affairs Staff at 301-713-6000. For information on the public forum, contact Avra Shapiro at the Wiesenthal Center at 310-553-9036.