Urging all member countries of the International Commission of the International Tracing Service (ITS) who have yet to ratify the May 2006 Amendments to the 1955 Bonn Accords Treaty, to expedite the ratification process to allow for open access to the Holocaust archives located at Bad Arolsen, Germany.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and agree to the resolution (H. Res. 240) urging all member countries of the International Commission of the International Tracing Service (ITS) who have yet to ratify the May 2006 Amendments to the 1955 Bonn Accords Treaty, to expedite the ratification process to allow for open access to the Holocaust archives located at Bad Arolsen, Germany.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the resolution under consideration.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of this resolution, and yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, it is a distinct honor to introduce H. Res. 240, a resolution urging the immediate ratification of the amendments to the 1955 Bonn Accords. This treaty would open the immense records of the Holocaust to Nazi war crime victims in Bad Arolsen, Germany. I would like to thank my good friend from Florida, Representative Alcee Hastings, who introduced this important resolution of which I am a proud cosponsor.

Mr. Speaker, the horror of Nazi crimes perpetrated on Jews and others across Europe were accompanied by meticulous recordkeeping that was maintained by the Third Reich throughout the reign of its terrible regime. These accounts include listings of victims, medical records, transport notes and other details that often provide the only history of millions of innocent people who perished at the hands of the Nazis.

An abandoned S.S. barracks at Bad Arolsen became the repository for many of these records, where they remained under the control the Allied Forces, and then under a consortium of 11 nations since the end of World War II, some 62 years ago.

Throughout those years, these records have been closed to the public. Most survivors' requests have been met with reluctance or disappointing bureaucratic neglect, resulting in some 500,000 legitimate requests for information that were outstanding by the year 2000, some of them made by people who are no longer with us today.

Bad Arolsen contains the records of 17.5 million individuals, and I have been told by experts at the Holocaust Museum here in Washington that almost every person to have known to have been a part of that terrible time can be found in those records, victims including Anne Frank, marks of saviors such as Oskar Schindler's famous list, and my octogenarian friend and constituent, Jacob Rosenthal of Long Island, and probably information on my own family members.

Mr. Speaker, there is a picture that hangs in my den. It used to hang in my mother's house. The color of the picture is completely in sepia, as was traditional for the time in which it was taken in Poland. It is a picture of the wedding party of my grandfather and grandmother, the grandmother whom I am named after and never met. It is a very old picture. The corners are turned down. It is starting to fade.

In front of the entire wedding party sits a whole group of young children sitting on the ground. My mother would point to this picture and point to the little children and say, ``This is my Uncle Chaim, and this one is my Aunt Rachel.'' I would ask, ``Mom, they are only children. How can they be your aunt and your uncle?'' And her response was, ``They will always be children.''

My mother never knew what happened to them. She would have liked to have known. Maybe those records will tell us what happened to them.

For survivors of the Holocaust, such as our good friend and colleague and chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, Tom Lantos, time for answers, for truth, for recognition that our loved ones existed and mattered is running out. We need these archives opened now, not next year, not a decade from now when fewer survivors will be here to find peace and possibly a strong degree of closure in the material in these archives. And perhaps opening these archives of over 17 million people will in part answer those evil people like the President of Iran, Mr. Ahmadinejad, who claims that the Holocaust never existed.

Our good friend from Kansas spoke on another bill and he cited scripture from Isaiah saying ``you be my witness.'' The Nazis were their own witnesses and documented in tremendous detail the lives of all of these people, as well as their deaths.

The 1955 Bonn Accords Treaty governs these records. The 11 countries that signed that treaty agreed in 1998 to open these records to the public, but it did not happen. Last year, these nations agreed to ensure not only the opening of the records, but also the sharing of digitized copies and access for researchers.

Diplomatically, substantial progress has been made in recent years in achieving international agreement. Four countries have ratified the 2006 amendments: the United States, Israel, Poland and the Netherlands. With this resolution, Congress urgently encourages the remaining seven countries to ratify the amendments by May of 2007. Next month is the deadline, and we insist we make the digital archives records available as soon as they are ready this summer.

Mr. Speaker, I strongly support this resolution, and urge all of our colleagues to do the same.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, to the gentleman from Florida, chairman of the Rules Subcommittee on Legislative and Budget Process, the initiator, sponsor, motivator of this legislation to whom we owe a debt of gratitude, Representative Alcee Hastings, I yield 5\1/2\ minutes.

(Mr. HASTINGS of Florida asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

We thank everybody for everything as well, including the Speaker. I have no further speakers. I yield back the balance of our time.

Madam Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and agree to the resolution (H. Res. 854) expressing gratitude to all of the member states of the International Commission of the International Tracing Service (ITS) on ratifying the May 2006 Agreement to amend the 1955 Bonn Accords granting open access to vast Holocaust and other World War II related archives located in Bad Arolsen, Germany, as amended.

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the resolution under consideration.

Madam Speaker, I rise in strong support of this resolution and yield myself such time as I may consume.

Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to support this resolution which recognizes the long overdue ratification of an international agreement that will open access to records of the Holocaust and Nazi war crimes. And I would like to commend my good friend and distinguished colleague, Alcee Hastings of Florida, for introducing this measure before us today.

On January 27, designated by the United Nations as the International Holocaust Remembrance Day, the world paused to honor the victims of this terrible crime and to vow never again to allow such atrocities to happen.

For many victims and relatives of the Holocaust, 2008 may provide the first opportunity to obtain access to information about their own treatment as well as the fate of their loved ones in Nazi death camps.

In 1955, 11 member countries signed the Bonn Accords to establish an International Commission responsible for overseeing the administration by the

International Tracing Service of Holocaust archives.

The service is based in Bad Arolsen, Germany, and is directed by the International Committee of the Red Cross.

Madam Speaker, the archive holds over 85,000 feet of records, listing victims' names, transport details, medical records, and in some cases the only history of those who died at the hands of the Nazis. The records contain over 50 million reference cards for over 17.5 million people.

For over 60 years, ITS has limited access to its records to survivors of Nazi crimes and their descendants. Aging Holocaust survivors have criticized ITS for delayed responses or a complete failure to provide them with any information. By 2006 ITS had recorded a backlog of over 400,000 requests.

Following years of delay, the 11 parties to the Bonn Accords Treaty signed amendments in May 2006 to ensure the records were fully opened to survivors as well as researchers. This process was to be enhanced by the distribution of digitized records to member countries.

While the United States, Israel, Poland, and the Netherlands were the first signatories to ratify the amendments, Holocaust survivors were forced to wait still longer until the remaining countries completed their ratification procedures. In April 2007, this House passed H. Res. 240 calling on the remaining seven countries to ratify the amendments by the May 2007 deadline.

The resolution before us today expresses appreciation to all member countries for having ratified the amendments, allowing survivors the opportunity to find peace in the material contained in these archives. The resolution highlights the key roles played by the United States Holocaust Museum, the Department of State, and the International Community of the Red Cross in achieving this outcome. And it calls on the Holocaust Museum and the Red Cross to create the necessary conditions by which survivors and their families can promptly obtain long-sought-after information regarding Holocaust-era atrocities. While the ratification of these amendments is tragically too late for many victims, the hope is that it provides answers for many others.

I support this resolution, Madam Speaker, and I urge my colleagues to do the same.

With that, Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, at this time I wish to yield 5 minutes to my good friend, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Hastings).

I want to thank the gentleman, the sponsor from Florida of this legislation, Mr. Hastings, for his comments.

Madam Speaker, at this time I would like to yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from Las Vegas, Nevada (Ms. Berkley).

Madam Speaker, first, let me thank the gentleman from California for his contribution to the debate today. I think his remarks are right on target.

At this time, Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Illinois (Ms. Schakowsky).

Madam Speaker, at this time, we have no further speakers on the subject, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I rise in strong support of H. Res. 240, which urges all member countries of the International Commission of the International Tracing Service, ITS, who have yet to ratify the May 2006 amendments to the 1955 Bonn Accords Treaty, to expedite the ratification process to allow for open access to the Holocaust archives located at Bad Arolsen, Germany.

The Holocaust was not a random act of mass murder but a systematic campaign of genocide carried out by the Nazis against the Jews. The world must never forget the more than 6 million Jews who perished in the Holocaust. In total, the atrocities were more than 60 percent of the pre-World War II Jewish population of Europe.

We must never forget the evil acts that happened during that era and we must continue the fight against racism, intolerance, bigotry, prejudice, discrimination and anti-Semitism in every form today.

After over 60 years, the Holocaust is still a presence, and there are living memorials all over the world dedicated to the memory of those who so cruelly lost their freedom and their lives, and to the continuing education to conquer prejudice, hatred, and injustice. As we allow for open access to the Holocaust archives, we remind the world that the Holocaust indeed was a sad part of our world's history, should anyone doubt its existence. As recently as December 2006, the President of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, held the second Holocaust denial conference in Tehran in 1 year. The time to act is now. The opening of the archives at Bad Arolsen could not be more opportune, especially with the resurgence of anti-Semitism in this part of the world.

The International Tracing Service (ITS) archives located in Bad Arolsen, Germany, remain the largest closed Holocaust-era archives in the world. The 50,000,000 records on the fates of some 17,500,000 individual victims of Nazi war crimes will forever be memorialized, reminding the world of the travesty and devastation that occurred in Nazi Germany. There have been too many instances of survivors and heirs of Holocaust victims being refused their moral and legal right to information--for restitution purposes, slave labor compensation, and personal closure.

Problems persist when those who have requested information in the past have reported facing significant delays and even unresponsiveness; furthermore, the records remain inaccessible to researchers and research institutions.

The 1955 Bonn Accords established an International Commission of 11 member countries, which includes the United States, and is charged with overseeing the administration of the ITS Holocaust archives. The amendments to the Bonn Accords require each of the 11 members of the International Commission to ratify the amendments before open access to the Holocaust archives is permitted.

The International Commission of the ITS agreed upon amendments to the Bonn Accords that would allow researchers to use the archives and would allow each Commission member country to receive digitized copies of archive materials and make the records available to researchers under the respective national laws relating to archives and privacy. Only 4 members out of the 11 Commission member countries have ratified the amendments to date. Although the United States is one of the 4 members that have ratified the amendment, there are 7 member countries that have yet to ratify. It is imperative that these 7 member nations ratify the amendment because it is essential that Holocaust researchers obtain access now, while survivors are living. I join my colleagues in urging all countries that have yet to ratify the amendments to abide by their treaty obligations made in May 2006 and to expedite the ratification of these amendments.

The murder of 6,000,000 Jews and more than 5,000,000 other victims during the Holocaust must not be forgotten. We must remember those who survived the unprecedented horrors of the Holocaust and those who were not so fortunate to survive the evils committed by the Nazis. I strongly urge my colleagues to support H. Res. 240.

Mr. Speaker, I thank my very good friend and an original cosponsor of this resolution, Representative Gary Ackerman, for the time.

Let me first say how grateful I am for the bipartisan cooperation and support of many House leaders to ensure that this important legislation was promptly brought to the House floor.

In particular, I thank the Chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Representative Tom Lantos, a true champion of this issue, and so many others in the international forum. I also thank the ranking member of the committee, and my fellow Floridian, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen. Both of them were critical in moving this bill forward.

I am also deeply appreciative of the tireless commitment to justice and fairness of the chairman of the Europe Subcommittee, my colleague and very good friend from Florida, Representative Robert Wexler. Representative Wexler not only held a critical hearing on this matter in his subcommittee, but also shepherded the resolution through the full committee.

And of course, I applaud the Republican cosponsor of this bill, my friend, Representative Mark Kirk, for his commitment to this issue. Both of these individuals have been instrumental in bringing this issue to the forefront of the United States Congress.

And, Mr. Speaker, very occasionally we don't mention our young staff people, but Eve Lieberman, in my office, had an awful lot to do with the work on this measure.

Mr. Speaker, appallingly, 62 years after the concentration camps of Europe were liberated, Holocaust survivors, their families and researchers still lack immediate, unfettered access to the Holocaust archives located in Bad Arolsen.

This important legislation follows upon previous efforts I made, with Representatives Wexler and Kirk, to open the archives. Earlier this year, I led bipartisan congressional letters to several European countries urging them to swiftly ratify the agreement to open the archives.

I was also privileged to testify at a hearing on this issue, along with Holocaust Museum experts, the State Department and Holocaust survivors. Since that hearing took place last month, and the letters were penned, I am pleased to report to my colleagues that the United Kingdom and Germany have ratified the treaty.

Indeed, our efforts are paying off. Nevertheless, much more needs to be done.

In our world, filled with anti-Semitism, hate, racial bigotry, xenophobia and religious intolerance, it is imperative to expose the horrors of the Holocaust to all humanity.

When the leader of Iran hosts numerous Holocaust denial conferences, and others in the world attempt to legitimize it, it could not be more important to open these Holocaust archives.

The majority of the member countries of the International Tracing Service have been derelict in their obligations under the amendments to the Bonn Accords which they signed last May. These amendments require full and open access to the archives. Shamefully, it remains unclear when these countries will fulfill their obligations.

If European countries are actually committed to closing this dark chapter in world history and combating modern day anti-Semitism, then they must ratify these amendments immediately.

With every day the archives remain closed, Holocaust survivors who have suffered some of the most unimaginable and tragic horrors and terrors are being forced to suffer even more. It is unconscionable that these individuals are now the ones burdened the most by unwarranted bureaucratic delays.

In passing this legislation, Mr. Speaker, the House is proving its commitment to this issue, and that it is watching the remaining European nations to ensure their expeditious ratification. The short time left for the remaining Holocaust survivors does not afford us time to deprive them of this critical information any longer.

Next month I will attend an anti-Semitism conference in Romania. It will be my great hope that by that time the other countries have ratified this matter.

I thank my friend from New York, Representative Ackerman, for the time.

Mr. Speaker, for generations, Israel has been defending itself against hostile nations and terrorism in the midst of a region long plagued by turmoil and instability. The United States, now more than ever, must stand by its relationship with Israel. I want to take this opportunity to address in more detail my support of recent legislation before Congress regarding Israel.

I am pleased to see a key piece of legislation pass the House this week that I have cosponsored, H. Res. 125. The resolution expresses deep concern over the use of civilians as human shields in violation of international humanitarian law and the law of war during armed conflict. During the summer of 2006 conflict between Hezbollah and the State of Israel, Hezbollah routinely used this brutal and illegal tactic of embedding its forces among civilians to use them as human shields. This bill calls upon the international community to recognize the breaches of international law through the use of human shields and calls upon the State Department to make recommendations to prevent the future use of human shields during armed conflicts. The majority of civilian casualties of that conflict might have been avoided and civilian lives saved had Hezbollah not employed this tactic.

I am also very concerned about an issue facing the rapidly shrinking population of Holocaust survivors, and their right to research the facts of the unspeakable tragedy. Earlier this year, I signed letters addressed to the Ambassadors from Great Britain, France, Greece, Belgium and Italy urging them to expedite the process of releasing the Holocaust archival records of the International Tracing Service (ITS) located in Bad Arolsen, Germany. These millions of extensive records have remained inaccessible to Holocaust survivors, their families, and researchers alike for decades. Although progress was made last May when the International Commission of the ITS amended the Bonn Accords to allow each Commission member country to receive a digitized copy of the archives, some of the nations have yet to ratify the amendments. For the sake of these survivors and their families, I joined my colleagues in urging these governments to ratify this critical treaty amendment without delay. These letters led to the introduction of H. Res. 240, of which I am an original cosponsor and that passed the House this week. Mirroring the letters, the bill urges all countries that have not ratified the amendments to abide by their May 2006 treaty obligations and expedite such ratification. The bill goes on to urge all members of the International Commission of the ITS to consider the short time left to Holocaust survivors and unanimously consent to open the ITS archives should all countries not ratify the amendments by May 2007.

Since I was first elected to Congress, I have always supported strengthening the partnership between the United States and Israel. I am pleased to see these two important bills pass the House, and throughout the 110th Congress, I will continue to look for opportunities to bolster the relationship with our key ally, Israel.