Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, March 21, 1993 TAG: 9303210082
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: The New York Times
DATELINE: BUENOS AIRES LENGTH: Medium
ARGENTINA PLEDGES OPEN FILES ON NAZIS
Argentina has moved to give investigators access to archives believed to hold information on suspected Nazi activities here after World War II.Foreign Minister Guido Di Tella signed an agreement this month with the Delegation of Argentine Jewish Associations, giving its researchers full access to the ministry's files, which are considered to be one of the main sources of information about Nazis that fled here after the war.
Di Tella said a law would soon be introduced in the national legislature declassifying all archives more than 25 years old and exempting from classification any material on Nazi activities in Argentina. He said the government would propose a separate law that would make it a crime to cover up, destroy or suppress files on Nazis.
"What happened today is an historic event," said Edgar M. Bronfman, president of the World Jewish Congress, after meeting with Di Tella. "The steps today were action-oriented."
The Foreign Ministry also turned over a list of files it said described dealings with reputed Nazis who tried to flee to South America after World War II. Leaders of Jewish groups said President Carlos Saul Menem also promised to force local police officials and provincial governments to open files.
By some estimates, hundreds of Nazis fleeing Europe eventually arrived in Argentina.
Among those who lived here were Adolf Eichmann, architect of Hitler's genocide against Jews; Joseph Mengele, the Auschwitz doctor who experimented on prisoners; Eduard Roschmann, captain of the SS in Riga, Latvia; Joseph Franz Schwammberger, commander in the Jewish ghetto of Przemysl, Poland, and Walter Kutschmann, who ordered the execution of 1,500 Jews in Ukraine.