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PAGE 6 THE SOUTHERN ISRAELITE July 25, 1986
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The cutting edge
Keeper of the Holocaust history
by Edwin Black
This column is adapted from a
forthcoming article in the National
Jewish Monthly. —Editor.
No one in America is closer to
the truth about the Holocaust than
Robert Wolfe.
Wolfe is the archivist in charge
of Nazi documentation at the Na
tional Archives in Washington, and
since 1961, has been entrusted with
the organization and safekeeping
of millions of documents relating
to the Holocaust era. That respon
sibility has compelled him to con
clude, “There is no greater evi
dence of the Holocaust than the
contemporary records of the per
petrators themselves.” Wolfe is both
the guardian of that truth and the
man determined to make it acces
sible.
Reposing in numberless oblong
document boxes and microfilm
reels, captured Nazi records in the
massive National Archives build
ing are stored in high security
vault-like chambers along a maze
of confusing corridors. So impen
etrable is this repository, that four
floors at the front of the building
are physically on different levels
than those at the rear of the build
ing.
But if anyone knows his way
around the cavernous archive, and
its holdings, it is Wolfe. Although
no one could possibly be aware of
every Reich document contained
within some 30,000 microfilm reels,
Wolfe is one of the four or five
most knowledgeable in the coun
try. He began his career as a
"screcner” in the ’60s, as part of the
thing we actually had. But the pho
tos were released anyway in that
condition, and that s exactly the
impression the world received.
Wolfe was also consulted about
Kurt Waldheim. “The records on
Waldheim were certainly here,”
asserts Wolfe, “but somebody
needed a reason to dig into them
again.” World Jewish Congress re
searchers contacted Wolfe “very
early in the game,” he recalls, “ex
plaining that Waldheim's memoirs
lied about his wartime record; he
was really in the Balkans. They
didn’t know which unit, only that
i “There is no greater evidence of the
Holocaust than the contemporary
records of the perpetrators
themselves.” Wolfe is both the
guardian of that truth and the man
determined to make it accessible. 5
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American Historical Association’s
research team reviewing unorgan
ized captured Nazi papers. Later,
when the National Archives acces
sioned the collection, Wolfe was
placed in charge and wrote some of
the guides to SS materials.
With experience comes a spe
cial expertise about Nazi documen
tation that has guided thousands
of Holocaust and Nazi-era scho
lars w ho over the years have come
to him for assistance. “A researcher
experienced in one area, may not
know what he is reading in another
area,” explains Wolfe. For this
reason, major Holocaust controv
ersies often end up on Wolfe’s desk
for guidance.
In 1978. for instance, Central
Intelligence Agency photo analysts
discovered the Auschwitz-Birkenau
files. Wolfe was secretly briefed in
anticipation of their release. “Using
modern enhancement techniques,
close cropping, blow-ups and
adding labels,” recalls Wolfe, “these
guys produced something very in
teresting based on what we now
know, showing the death camp in
operation. I told them they had to
put things in context, or it would
look like the United States had
information far clearer than any-
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he served with Gen. Alexander
Loehr,” recounts Wolfe. “I knew'
Lochr was executed in 1947 as a
war criminal. The question was,
how did Waldheim fit in? The evi
dence was scattered through almost
20 rolls of microfilm—each with
over 1000 documents.
“1 advised them where to search.
When they found information
leading somewhere and they needed
help.” Wolfe continues, “1 was
always ready to oblige. For exam
ple, when the cryptic listing, ’03,’
appears next to Waldheim’s name,
what does that mean? It means he
is a staff officer in charge of inter
rogations.”
Ultimately, WJC and other re
searchers located essential docu
mentation in the National Archives
to expand their charges against
Waldheim. Wolfe is careful, how
ever, not to lend his own interpreta
tion to the Waldheim documenta
tion. “The guidance was ours, the
interpretations were theirs,” says
Wolfe.
Speaking personally, and not as
a government archivist, Wolfe con
cedes, “Perhaps there’s enough for
an indictment, but 1 haven’t seen
enough yet for a conviction. And a
good prosecutor is reluctant to
make an indictment unless he can
win a conviction. One should make
charges where there is solid proof
From a tactical point of view, it j s
better to build a case than to ‘p. R ’
your case.”
While the United Nations has
rightly come under attack by histo
rians for keeping its War Crimes
Commission documents closed, as
an archivist Wolfe understands their
thinking. “The U.N. Commission
reports include a lot of preliminary
lists,” asserts Wolfe. “Some people
appearing on those U.N. lists were
actually anti-Nazis who ended
up there by mistake. The U.S.
Army made similar lists during the
same period,” he explains. “But we
used to clean up our lists regularly
when we discovered that it was a
mistake.”
Indeed, every archive restricts
material based on different crite
ria. More than a half century after
the rise of Hitler, there are still
Holocaust-era documents classified
in various public and private ar
chives around the world. In rare
instances, this includes the Na
tional Archives, where such re
strictions are made by either Wolfe
or his staff.
Are there other Waldheim-genre
timebombs lurking in the oblong
boxes and microfilm reels of the
National Archives? “There can’; be
many more” says Wolfe, “because
generally they only become impor
tant w hen the person is alive. Most
of these people are dead now. But
nobody knows. All 1 can say is that
if anyone suddenly needs to check,
we have the documents here.”
Wolfe's devotion to his work
springs from far more than simple
archival professionalism. Among
the world’s archivists, Wolfe stands
out less as a paper perfectionist
than a deeply compassionate man,
whose awful present tense is safe
guarding the history of the destruc
tion of six million Jews.
In that regard, Wolfe has a
warning: “ l he Holocaust needs no
exaggeration,” says Wolfe. “It is
beyond exaggeration. And to em
broider the facts in any way is itself
a sin against the martyrs.”
* 1986 Feature Group
ADL complains of Saudi press
Hour*:
Monday-Friday
8:30 a.m.-8:00 p.m.
Saturday
8:30 a.m.-6:00 p.m.
NEW YORK (JTA)-The Anti-
Defamation League of B’nai B’rith
has lodged a new protest with the
Saudi Arabian government over
the publication in the Saudi Press
of at least 27 “viciously” anti-Semit
ic editorials, articles and cartoons
since the first of the year.
In a July 10 letter to Saudi
Ambassador Prince Bandar bin
Sultan, associate national director
Abraham Foxman, who is head of
the ADL’s international affairs di
vision, urged the Saudi govern
ment “to put an end to the vicious
slander emanating from the Saudi
national press.”
“As we noted in our Feb. 18 let
ter,” Foxman wrote, “such crude
and wanton attacks could not ap
pear in your nation’s publications
without official governmental ap
proval.”
In the month of June alone, the
ADL official said, six anti-Jewish
cartoons appeared in the Jeddah-
based English language newspaper
Arab News. Typical of the anti-
Semitic material in the Arab News
since January were the following:
• Stories (Feb. 14 and 15) alleg
ing Jewish manipulation of world
events through “Zionist control ol
the U.S. media.”
• Allegations (April 5) that the
exposure of Kurt Waldheim’s Nazi
ties constituted a “witch hunt” car
ried out by Jewdsh organizations.
• A cartoon (June 1) showing
the Statue of Liberty being carried
to her grave with an unflatteringly
stereotyped Jewish figure, shovel
in hand, waiting to bury her.