Washington Holocaust Museum to get UN war crimes archive

NEW YORK (JTA) – The United Nations will give the U.S. Holocaust Museum in Washington its archive documenting the actions of  thousands of Nazi war criminals, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations said.

Samantha Power told an Anti-Defamation League conference on Thursday that the entire archive will benefit scholars “at a time when Holocaust denial is embraced by many who prefer diversionary fantasies to inconvenient facts.”

The unrestricted records of the United Nations War Crimes Commission, relating to more than 10,000 cases in Europe and Asia, were put online in early July by the International Criminal Court after an agreement with the U.N. However, thousands of files remained restricted.

The War Crimes Commission was established in 1943 by 17 allied nations to issue lists of alleged war criminals.