Argentina’s Supreme Court has uncovered 83 boxes of Nazi propaganda and materials in its basement, more than eight decades after they were first confiscated during World War II, court officials announced on Sunday.
The boxes, originally shipped in June 1941 by the German embassy in Tokyo aboard the Japanese steamship Nan-a-Maru, were intercepted by Argentine authorities who feared the contents could compromise the country’s wartime neutrality.
A random inspection of five boxes revealed Nazi propaganda, photographs, postcards, and thousands of notebooks linked to the Nazi Party.
Though confiscated by a federal judge and referred to the Supreme Court at the time, the fate of the boxes remained unknown until court staff rediscovered them while preparing for a new judicial museum.
“Upon opening one of the boxes, we identified material intended to consolidate and propagate Adolf Hitler’s ideology in Argentina during the Second World War,” the court said in a statement.
The materials have now been moved to a secure location and will be examined by experts from the Buenos Aires Holocaust Museum.
Historians hope the cache will shed light on lesser-known aspects of the Holocaust, including Nazi international funding networks and ideological efforts in South America.
Argentina remained neutral in WWII until 1944, eventually declaring war on Germany and Japan in 1945.
From 1933 to 1954, the country welcomed over 40,000 Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi persecution, making it home to the largest Jewish population in Latin America.
