Belgian archives held in Russia

[Richard T Eger]

The following is a note I received today from Jaap Woortman:

"Dear Richard,

Here is an article on the Russian archives. As you will see, it is an article written by Dirk Martin Head Archivist of the SOMA in Belgium. The article speaks for itself. I give you the honour of being the first in the new Millenium to publish on the site of the Luftwaffe Archives Group. I do hope that this year may be as fruitful as last year.

Jaap"

The article mentioned can be accessed at:

http://lwag.org/reference/osoby005.PDF

You will need Adobe Acrobat Reader to read this document. If you don't have it, a free copy can be downloaded from:

http://www.adobe.com

The article is of interest as it gives background on Belgian archives at first confiscated by Germany in WW II and then captured by the Soviet Union, eventually being discovered by Belgium in the Osoby archives. Martin, as an aside, states "But in the gigantic German section too..." It certainly sounds like he found at least where some of the captured German records ended up. Once discovered, Martin's office attempted to recover the Belgian archives held by Russia, but was thwarted by the DUMA in this effort.

While the Belgian archives Martin is concerned about sound like they likely do not contain Luftwaffe related material, the confirmation that foreign archives are definitely held by Russia and that they were at least accessible to someone in Martin's position is of importance to historical researchers. His short paper is definitely worth the reading to give some understanding of the situation around foreign archives held by Russia.

Regards,
Richard