A group of 36 members of Congress has sent a letter to Argentina’s president urging his government to make good on his pledge to open all of its secret files on Nazi war criminals.
The Argentine president, Carlos Saul Menem, announced one year ago that he would open the files. But after an initial release of some documents, his government has shown little sign of acting further on Menem’s pledge.
Jewish groups have been interested in the issue, in part because it is believed that Argentina once harbored the largest concentration of fugitive Nazi war criminals in the world.
In a move that could signal progress on the issue, the Argentine government has invited World Jewish Congress officials to come examine the files.
WJC President Edgar Bronfman will meet with Argentine Foreign Minister Guido Di Tella in Buenos Aires on Thursday to discuss the issue.
Elan Steinberg, executive director of the WJC, said Argentine officials had given the WJC “a flat-out commitment” that WJC researchers and historians from the Argentine Jewish community “will be given access to the files.”
“We are convinced of their good faith,” he said.
Steinberg noted that Menem had originally pledged to release the files in a meeting with WJC leaders in 1991.
The congressional letter, organized by Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.), calls for “prompt, full and complete disclosure of the contents” of the files.
Maloney said through a spokesperson that she expected the letter to “catch the attention of the Argentine government” and that she would “follow up with the ambassador of Argentina in the next few weeks” if no response was forthcoming.
The aide said that Maloney was motivated to organize the letter after reading media reports about the delay in implementing Menem’s plan.
A small amount of information was made public at the time of Menem’s original announcement, but since then, not much has been released. And the information that was released has been criticized for consisting primarily of photostat copies of newspaper reports.
During the reign of Gen. Juan Peron in the 1940s and 1950s, many Nazis lived in Argentina, including Josef Mengele, the doctor who performed sadistic experiments on inmates at the Auschwitz concentration camp, and Martin Bormann, Adolf Hitler’s deputy.
Peron was known as an admirer of fascism and Nazism. He served as a military officer under Italian fascist leader Benito Mussolini.
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