Holocaust Museum to help France trace Jews

French authorities will get help from the U.S. Holocaust Museum in tracing Jews and others held in the French concentration camp at Rivesaltes during World War II, under an agreement signed Monday at the museum.

More than 2,300 Jews were among as many as 8,000 men, women and children held at the camp were later sent to Auschwitz, French Ambassador Jean-David Levitte said at the signing ceremony.

Rivesaltes, in the Pyrenees Mountains near the Spanish border, was one of an estimated 31 camps where Jewish refugees were held in France. Barracks at the camp, which earlier housed refugees from the Spanish Civil War, are being restored as a memorial. The agreement was signed by Christian Bourquin, president of the general council of the Department of Pyrenees-Orientales, the local authority.

A data base is also being set up.

Radu Ioanid, in charge of international archives at the museum, said it would put French authorities in touch with 256 survivors of Rivesaltes, who could help with information on others who were interned there. He praised the cooperation of French officials in memorializing Jewish victims of the Nazis.

More help to the data base may come from the expected opening of German concentration camp archives held by the International Tracing Service at Bad Arolsen, Germany. The German government announced last month that it is ready to work with the United States, which along with France and others, has urged access for historians. The 11 governments concerned will meet in Luxembourg May 16 in an attempt to get agreement on the opening.