M.21.1 - Kriegsverbrecherreferat (War Criminals Department), Central Committee of Liberated Jews - Munich

M.21.1 - Kriegsverbrecherreferat (War Criminals Department), Central Committee of Liberated Jews - Munich The War Criminals Department was established in the American Occupied Zone a short time after the end of World War II. From 1946-1951 it was active as the legal division of the Central Committee of Liberated Jews in Munich, in cooperation with the Central Historical Commission in Munich and other survivor organizations. The role of the division was to locate war criminals and collaborators, to gather documentary material, to collect testimony from survivors and to bring the criminals to trial. In 1960 all the documentation was transferred to the legal department of the Joint Distribution Committee (JDC). On 19 September 1960, the documentation was submitted to Yad Vashem through the auspices of the Foreign Ministry. In the collection there are also personal files regarding Nazi war criminals and Ukrainian, Latvian and Lithuanian collaborators who were active, mainly in the areas of Poland. There are testimonies of survivors in all the documentation.