143b
[DOCID: f:sr133is.txt]
107th CONGRESS
1st Session
S. RES. 133
Expressing the sense of the Senate that information pertaining to Nazi
war criminals should be brought to light so that future generations can
learn from the Holocaust, and for other purposes.
_______________________________________________________________________
IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES
July 12, 2001
Mr. Corzine submitted the following resolution; which was referred to
the Committee on Foreign Relations
_______________________________________________________________________
RESOLUTION
Expressing the sense of the Senate that information pertaining to Nazi
war criminals should be brought to light so that future generations can
learn from the Holocaust, and for other purposes.
Whereas in the 1930s and 1940s, the German National Socialist Party, the Nazi
Party, methodically orchestrated acts of genocide resulting in the
deaths of 6,000,000 Jews and 5,000,000 Gypsies, Poles, Jehovah's
Witnesses, political dissidents, physically and mentally disabled
people, and homosexuals;
Whereas the term Holocaust is used to describe the systematic extermination of
Jews and others by the Nazis during the period beginning on March 23,
1933, and ending on May 8, 1945;
Whereas in 1946, the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg declared the
Shutzstaffel or SS, the elite corps of the Nazi Party, to be a criminal
organization guilty of persecuting and exterminating Jews; of
brutalities and killings in the concentration camps; of excesses in the
administration of the slave labor program; and of mistreatment and
murder of prisoners of war;
Whereas Nazi war criminals include any person who ordered, incited, assisted, or
otherwise participated in the persecution of any person because of race,
religion, national origin, or political opinion, during the Holocaust,
under the direction of, or in association with, the Nazi government of
Germany;
Whereas not all of these Nazi war criminals were brought to justice as required
by the Nuremberg Tribunal;
Whereas in the 1970s, information began to surface that the United States
intelligence community harbored Nazi war criminals, including Klaus
Barbie, a Nazi war criminal later found responsible for the torture and
death of more than 26,000 people, in order to spy on the former Soviet
Union and for other purposes;
Whereas in 1998, the 105th Congress passed and President Bill Clinton signed
into law the ``Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act'', which provided for the
declassification of records relating to Nazi war criminals, Nazi
persecution, Nazi war crimes, and Nazi looted assets, including those
held by the Central Intelligence Agency;
Whereas the Nazi War Criminal Interagency Working Group was convened by
Executive Order on January 11, 1999, to (1) locate, identify, inventory,
recommend for declassification, and make available all classified Nazi
war criminal records, subject to certain specified restrictions; (2)
coordinate with Federal agencies and expedite the release of such
classified records to the public; and (3) complete work to the greatest
extent possible and report to Congress one year after passage of
legislation;
Whereas the Interagency Working Group recently declassified and analyzed
documents of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), forerunner of the
Central Intelligence Agency, revealing that the United States used Nazi
war criminals for intelligence operations against the former Soviet
Union;
Whereas the declassified documents reveal further that the OSS assisted Nazi war
criminals in evading capture and prosecution and, in a few cases,
facilitated their immigration and assimilation in the United States; and
Whereas it is unknown to what extent the former Soviet Union and other nations
used Nazi war criminals for spy operations: Now, therefore, be it
Resolved, That it is the sense of the Senate that--
(1) the Nazi War Criminal Interagency Working Group served
the public interest by investigating and publicizing the extent
to which the United States used Nazi war criminals for
intelligence purposes following the Second World War;
(2) the Administration should work with the international
intelligence community to expedite the release of information
regarding the use of Nazi war criminals as intelligence
operatives in the aftermath of the Second World War, especially
by the former Soviet Union; and
(3) information pertaining to Nazi war criminals should be
brought to light so that future generations can learn from the
Holocaust.
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