Boxes containing Nazi passports and membership cards were found in a basement of the Palace of Justice.
A discovery of global significance was made in the archives of the Supreme Court of Justice : within the framework of the works for the creation of the museum of the highest court and the transfer of documentation from its archive, judicial officials detected a series of boxes with Nazi material and documentation that entered the country in 1941 .
The Court reported that, given the historical significance of the discovery and the potentially crucial information it could contain for shed light on events related to the Holocaust, the president of the Supreme Court, Horacio Rosatti, ordered a thorough review of all the material.
The discovery was made by chance during the moving process for the construction of the future Supreme Court Museum. Upon opening one of the boxes, material intended to consolidate and propagate Adolf Hitler's ideology in Argentina during the Second World War was identified.
According to what the Court was able to reconstruct, the history of these boxes dates back to June 20, 1941, with the arrival in the country of 83 packages sent by the German embassy in Tokyo aboard the Japanese steamer Nan-a-Maru. The German diplomatic mission in Argentina had declared the contents as personal effects for its members, requesting their free clearance. However, Customs stopped their entry and contacted then-Foreign Minister Enrique Ruiz Guiñazú , given the risk of affecting Argentina's neutrality in the European conflict.
The Special Investigative Commission on Anti-Argentine Activities , which operated in the Chamber of Deputies between 1941 and 1943, then intervened. On August 8, 1941, representatives of Customs, the Foreign Ministry and the commission opened five boxes at random: they discovered postcards, photographs and propaganda material from the German regime, as well as thousands of membership books of the National Socialist German Workers' Party Organization abroad and the German Union of Trade Unions.
The German diplomatic representatives requested the packages be returned so they could be forwarded to their embassy in Tokyo. German officials were inclined to grant the request, but the investigative commission went to court to prevent it, citing the presence of anti-democratic propaganda that was harmful to Argentina's allied nations. It was emphasized that only random boxes were inspected and that the German embassy had previously lied to smuggle a radiotelegraph transmitter into the country as diplomatic mail.
Federal judge Miguel Luciano Jantus of the Federal Capital ordered the seizure of the packages on September 13, 1941. Three days later, the judge referred the case to the Supreme Court, as it was a matter that directly involved a foreign country.
The relocation of the archives for the future location of the Court Museum led officials to come across these boxes, which were piled up in the basement of the building. Last Friday, the boxes were opened in front of experts and researchers.
Rosatti presided over the formal opening of the boxes in an office on the fourth floor of the Palace of Justice. The ceremony was attended by AMIA's Chief Rabbi, Eliahu Hamra; Jonathan Karszenbaum, Executive Director of the Buenos Aires Holocaust Museum; and researcher Marcia Ras. Also present were Pablo Lamounan, Head of the Federal Judicial Assistance Center; Jessica Susco, Director of the Supreme Court Libraries; Marcelo Valente, Director of the Office of Auxiliary Services; and María de la Paz Podestá, a graduate in conservation and restoration of cultural assets.
From now on, the Court reported, an inventory will begin to review the documentation. The main objective is to conduct a thorough review to determine whether the material contains crucial information about the Holocaust and whether the clues found can shed light on still unknown aspects, such as the path of Nazi money worldwide .
On December 26, 2024, with the signatures of Justices Rosatti, Carlos Rosenkrantz, and Ricardo Lorenzetti , the Supreme Court signed a cooperation agreement with the Association of Jewish Lawyers of the Argentine Republic and the Holocaust Memorial Foundation, with the aim of promoting joint research and dissemination activities. The Holocaust Museum was specifically invited to collaborate in the research of the recently discovered material and its historical significance.
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