A small but highly dramatic exhibition of Nazi papers and artifacts documenting the persecution of the Jews has been mounted here by the National Archives in its Pennsylvania Avenue lobby. All of the records to be shown in the exhibit which opened several days ago and will continue during the summer were entered as evidence in war crimes trials held at Nuremberg and elsewhere.
They span eight years, from 1938 through 1945, and provide authentic, contemporary documentation of what the Nazis termed “the final solution”–the near extermination of the Jews in much of Europe.
Dr. James B. Rhoads, archivist of the United States, explained that the National Archives is putting on this exhibition “because of the unusual amount of interest engendered by the recent NBC-TV ‘Holocaust’ series, as evidenced to us by telephone calls and visits by people seeking further information. It occurred to us at the National Archives that it would be a public service to show, in a small way, that documentary proof of the persecution of the Jews does indeed exist.”
As the repository of federal government documents, the Archives during the post-World War II period received both Nazi war crimes trial records as well as a vast body of captured German records. The captured documents were later returned to Germany, but exact copies have been retained by the Archives.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
