WASHINGTON (JTA) — The original Nuremberg Laws documents were transferred to the National Archives in Washington, where they will reside permanently.
The papers, transported Wednesday from the Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens in California, were signed by Hitler in 1935 and codified the systematic extermination of Jews in Nazi Germany. They are thought to be the only copies of the Nuremberg Laws to exist.
Gen. George Patton, who was given the papers by U.S. soldiers who found them in a German bank vault and then disobeyed orders by bringing them out of Germany, gave the documents to the Huntington in 1945.
The pages specify what made a person Jewish, and stripped those who fell into that category of their German citizenship. The laws were broken down into three broad categories: The Laws for the Safeguard of German Blood and German Honor forbade intermarriage or cohabitation between Aryans and Jews; The Reich’s Citizen Law said German citizens must be of German blood; and the Reich’s Flag Law outlined the Nazi flag.
