Interagency Working Group Appoints Linda Holmes to Advisory Panel
Press Release · Tuesday, May 23, 2000

College Park, MD

Nazi War Criminal Records Interagency Working Group

Dr. Michael Kurtz, Assistant Archivist at the National Archives and Chair of the Nazi War Criminal Records Interagency Working Group (IWG), announced the appointment of Linda Goetz Holmes to the IWG Historical Advisory Panel. Dr. Kurtz said, "I welcome Ms. Holmes to the IWG Historical Advisory Panel. Her knowledge of the history of Japanese war criminality during World War II will assist the IWG as it pushes for the release of records in that area."

Ms. Holmes, a graduate of Wellesley College and former editor at CBS Television, has been researching and writing about World War II Pacific Theater prisoners of war for two decades. She is author of 4000 Bowls of Rice: A Prisoner of War Comes Home (1994) and a forthcoming book on Japanese company use of American prisoners of war in the Pacific in World War II. Ms. Holmes is the eighth expert to join the Historical Advisory Panel, which advises the IWG and the IWG historical consultants on the historical significance of records being declassified under the Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act. The historians and experts on the panel also recommend measures to improve the effectiveness of the IWG and Federal agencies in implementing the Act.

President Clinton established the Nazi War Criminal Records Interagency Working Group (IWG) in January 1999, through Executive Order 13110. The group has been charged with locating, identifying, inventorying, recommending for declassification and making available all classified criminal records of the Nazi government and its allies, subject to specified restrictions. Additional information about the IWG and the Historical Advisory Panel is available at the IWG website at www.archives.gov/iwg/.

For press information, contact Giuliana Bullard, 703-532-1477 or Susan Cooper at the National Archives and Records Administration at 301-837-1700.

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