Academics quit Austrian Holocaust studies center due to a lack of access

A group of researchers quit their involvement in an Austrian Holocaust studies center due to a lack of access.

Officials of the Vienna Wiesenthal Institute for Holocaust Studies resigned, saying the community’s restrictions on access to the documents would prohibit any serious research, The Associated Press reported.

The center was opened to provide academics access to thousands of files from the late Simon Wiesenthal and to the archive of the Jewish Community Vienna.

Twelve of the institute’s 15-member international academic advisory board is dropping out, according to the AP, which cited a letter obtained by the news service.

The academics include Yehuda Bauer, professor of Holocaust studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem; David Bankier, head of the International Institute for Holocaust Research at Yad Vashem; and Tom Segev, an Israeli historian, journalist and Wiesenthal biographer, according to the AP.