Holocaust Gold Train archive to be set up in US, Israel


The US Holocaust Memorial Museum and Yad Vashem will each be given$500,000 to compile Hungarian Holocaust documents and artifacts.
Globes correspondent 16 Apr 06 12:16
As part of the settlement of the historic "Gold Train" lawsuit, United States Judge Patricia A. Seitz has approved a plan submitted by plaintiffs' counsel to provide $500,000 to museums in the US and Israel to establish and compile an archive of records and artifacts documenting the Gold Train events, as well as the fate of Hungarian Jews in the Holocaust.


The institutions selected, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., and Yad Vashem, Israel's Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Authority, will each receive $250,000 for use in compiling and managing the archive, in accordance with the settlement by the US government of the "Gold Train" class action lawsuit brought by Hungarian Holocaust survivors and their heirs.

In ordering the $500,000 allocation for the museums, Judge Seitz relied upon a plan jointly submitted by counsel for the plaintiff and the United States government based upon a proposal from a committee of holocaust experts. Committee members Randolph Braham of New York, Ronald Zweig of Jerusalem, and Mark Talisman of Washington DC, are eminent historians appointed in the parties' settlement to select prominent institutions to compile the archive and make it available for future generations. The committee's report calls for vigorous efforts to memorialize the history through existing archives in Hungary, Israel, and the US, obtaining information and documents from repositories for which access was previously limited, and to declassify information as necessary.