Argentine Supreme Court discovers over 80 boxes of forgotten Nazi documents

The Supreme Court said the review is to discern “whether the material contains crucial information about the Holocaust and whether the clues found can shed light on still-unknown aspects, such as the global Nazi money trail.”

By Grace Gilson, JTA

The Supreme Court of Argentina discovered over 80 boxes of material from the Nazis in its basement last Friday, prompting court officials to work with local Jewish organizations to review their contents.

The boxes were sent in 1941 from the embassy of Nazi Germany in Tokyo to German diplomats in Argentina.

Their contents include Nazi postcards, photographs and propaganda material, which, the court said in a statement Monday, were “intended to consolidate and propagate Adolf Hitler’s ideology in Argentina.”

After the shipment came to Argentina, Argentine authorities feared the contents could affect Argentina’s neutrality at the time in World War II, and the boxes were referred to the Supreme Court.

It is unclear what action the court may have taken at the time, but the trove of material will now be reviewed in collaboration with the Association of Jewish Lawyers of the Argentine Republic and the local Holocaust Memorial Foundation.

The Supreme Court said the objective of the review is to discern “whether the material contains crucial information about the Holocaust and whether the clues found can shed light on still-unknown aspects, such as the global Nazi money trail.”

The discovery follows the declassification earlier this month by the Argentine government of more than 1,800 files on Nazi escape via “rat-lines” to South America.

Argentine President Javier Milei ordered the declassification of the documents after a meeting with leaders from the Simon Wiesenthal Center.