50 million pages

[MrBern]

50 million pages that cover 16 linear miles of gray metal filing cabinets and cardboard binders spread over six buildings

Allied forces began collecting the documents even before the end of the WWII, and eventually entrusted them to the Red Cross. The archive has been governed since 1955 by a multinational commission that normally met once a year.

After more that 60 years, German WWII documents were unsealed by the RedCross.

FULL STORY

 

[Vintage Betty]

The opening of the archives have been discussed for over 20 years that I know of, and I personally have seen references to it that are 40+ years old.

The U.S. TV show 60 Minutes took a few Holocaust survivors to the archives, and researched their history and families. Some interesting questions arose from the trip. The crew also had the staff pull the records of Anne Frank. The highlights of this story may be available online for viewing, or watch for reruns (it's already been repeated once at least).

Only a small staff and a small amount of the data is available online at this time; it will take many more years to upload the data and get enough funding to bring in more staff, especially from a reluctant foreign government who did not want the archives opened.

Hopefully, people who survived such tragedy can at least have their questions answered, and the data amassed can be put to a useful purpose at last.

Vintage Betty

 

[Martinis at 8]

...The crew also had the staff pull the records of Anne Frank...

The story of Anne is a tragic chapter in the epic of her father Otto. In visiting the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam I wrote a rather lengthy paragraph in the guest book about how I felt the story of Otto was untold. Fortunately, one of the docents chased me down as I was leaving the building and re-directed me to the gift shop, where this very interesting biography was found. http://www.harperacademic.com/catalog/guide_xml.asp?isbn=0060520833

The biography reads as a modern tale of Job, and I'm just hoping for it to be put to opera.

M8

 

[Vintage Betty]

A new Anne Frank diary has or will be released, with more "sensitive" writing about a girl growing into a woman. According to news reports, her father insisted on editing down the original version as some of Anne's writing was too sensitive.

On Otto's passing, the original diaries and rights to the books went to relatives of the Frank family, I believe. Relatives who recently acquired the diaries said there is a lot more that was unpublished and they were going to publish an unedited version, if memory serves me correctly.

VB

 

[Twitch]

Since the Red Cross is a humanitatian outfit I have wondered why they have not made the information available before now, when most of the people involved have already died. Too little too late.

 

[Martinis at 8]

...On Otto's passing, the original diaries and rights to the books went to relatives of the Frank family, I believe. Relatives who recently acquired the diaries said there is a lot more that was unpublished and they were going to publish an unedited version, if memory serves me correctly...

I'm hoping that the other papers concerning Anne do not get published. There are too many iconoclasts out there these days, and I believe many fall into the category that would try to minimize the impact of the story concerning Anne.

M8