Nazi archives confiscated by Argentinean authorities during World War II have been rediscovered in the basement of the Supreme Court.
According to Reuters, the court on Sunday, May 11, 2025, stated that they have found 83 boxes of the Nazi material which, as per history, were sent by the German embassy in Tokyo to Argentina in June 1941 aboard the Japanese steamship "Nan-a-Maru.”
The court said, “Upon opening one of the boxes, we identified material intended to consolidate and propagate Adolf Hitler's ideology in Argentina during the Second World War.”
The court employees discovered the material surprisingly while preparing for the development of the museum.
The formal opening of the boxes took place in the presence of Supreme Court Chief Justice Horacio Rosatti, AMIA’s Chief Rabbi Eliahu Hamra, Buenos Aires Holocaust Museum Director Jonathan Karszenbaum, researcher Marcia Ras and other legal officials and experts.
Some of the documents are in a very poor condition, while others are well preserved.
The court has invited Argentina's Holocaust Museum for the documentation and preservation of the archives that include postcards, photographs and notebooks, as well as propaganda material. Till then, all the material is transferred into an extra security-equipped room.
Experts will now examine the documents to find new aspects and clues about the Holocaust, such as international financing networks used by the Nazis.
Argentina's role in World War II
Argentina remained neutral in World War II until 1944, when it declared war on Germany and Japan.
As per the Holocaust Museum, from 1933 to 1954, around 40,000 Jews entered Argentina, the home of the largest Jewish population in Latin America, after fleeing from the Nazi persecution in Europe.
Argentina's President Juan Perón, who came to power in 1946, was a prominent Nazi sympathiser, and after the end of World War II, the South American country became a centre for Nazi Germany's war criminals.
