Himmler’s Pleasure at Killing of Jews Exhibited in Document

A stark reminder of the Holocaust--a speech by Nazi SS leader Heinrich Himmler that refers to “the extermination of the Jewish race”--went on display Friday at the National Archives.

The documents, including handwritten notes by Himmler, are among the best evidence that exists to rebut claims that the Holocaust is a myth, archivists say.

“The notes give them their authenticity,” said Robert Wolfe, a supervisory archivist for captured German records. “He was supposed to destroy them. Like a lot of bosses, he didn’t obey his own rules.”

The documents, moved out of Berlin to what Himmler hoped would be a safe hiding place, were recovered by Allied forces after World War II from a salt mine near Salzburg, Austria.

Himmler spoke on Oct. 4, 1943, in Posen, Poland, to more than 100 German secret police generals. “I also want to talk to you, quite frankly, on a very grave matter. Among ourselves it should be mentioned quite frankly, and yet we will never speak of it publicly.

“I mean the clearing out of the Jew, the extermination of the Jewish race. This is a page of glory in our history which has never been written and is never to be written.”

The German word Himmler uses that is translated as “extermination” is “ Ausrottung .”

Wolfe said a more precise translation would be “extirpation” or “tearing up by the roots.”

In his handwritten notes, Himmler used a euphemism, “ Judenevakuierung ,” or “evacuation of the Jews.” But archives officials said “extermination” is the word he actually spoke--preserved on an audiotape in the archives.

Himmler, who oversaw Adolf Hitler’s “final solution of the Jewish question,” committed suicide after he was arrested in 1945.

The National Archives exhibit, on display through May 16, is a preview of the opening of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum here on April 26.

The National Archives exhibit includes a page each of Himmler’s handwritten notes, a typed transcript from the speech and an official translation made for the Nuremberg war crimes trials.