A website was constructed at www.edwinblack.com to offer sample excerpts and other historian and leadership commentary. A single sedate and carefully worded press release was readied by the publishers worldwide. More than two dozen scholars and Jewish leaders had unanimously written public letters of endorsement to be released simultaneously.
There is a point here. IBM and the Holocaust was not—and could not—be created in isolation. I invited an unprecedented level of pre-publication review and authentication by scores of independent sources—all at my unwavering insistence. It was expensive, cumbersome, tedious, and frequently a nerve-wracking, twenty-four-hours-per-day undertaking for my publishers; my agent, Lynne Rabinoff; my seasoned, original editor at Crown Publishing, Douglas Pepper; and myself. But in the end, we could all declare that we had exercised every ounce of prudence humanly possible—and then some.
Books had been pre-positioned in stores worldwide in unlabeled boxes, with warnings that they could not be opened until February 12, 2001.
Then came the leak—it was exactly the type of vague and misleading message we were hoping to avoid. And it was pervasive. Far from an errant book store, or a reporter jumping the gun—the source of the leak was where I always expected: IBM itself.
Days before February 12, IBM broadcasted a global e-mail to its more than 300,000 employees, warning that the book would soon be released and that it would evoke “painful” topics about IBM’s involvement in the Holocaust. Copies of the e-mail were circulated to major news outlets around the world. That warning was followed by a carefully crafted statement: “IBM does not have much information about this period or the operations of Dehomag.” Then a steady campaign of misinformation began.
IBM always knew I was working on this book. In 1999, after assembling very preliminary research, I contacted IBM’s corporate archivist Paul Lasewicz for permission to examine the company’s archives in Somers, New York. I offered to share with the company all my findings so that IBM—and the world—could obtain an accurate portrayal of the corporation’s involvement in the Holocaust. Lasewicz approved my access but needed permission from IBM public relations manager Ian Colley to schedule the exact day. After I had spent weeks of waiting, and numerous conversations with him, Colley still refused to schedule my visit, claiming Lasewicz’s archive was “understaffed,” in massive disarray after years of neglect, and involved in a time-consuming Internet project.
Several prominent Holocaust figures also asked IBM to schedule my access. The importance of the project was stressed, as were the basic themes of identification, confiscation, ghettoization, and even concentration and extermination. The more we inquired, the quieter and more ambiguous IBM became about its intentions to permit a review. Unbeknownst to me, IBM used this time to scour its New York files. Nor did we know that, many months before, IBM had hired a group of litigation historians who search government archives worldwide for incriminating corporate links to Nazi Germany, to tackle the company’s own 8,400 cubic feet of files. We knew that IBM had a history, going back to the Hitler era, of moving files from obscure place to obscure place, losing critical documents, purging records, and even destroying files.
After several months, I wrote a blunt letter to IBM chairman Louis Gerstner, openly sending copies to numerous senior executives: “I and others have repeatedly asked since May of 1999 that I be allowed into the IBM Archives in New York to conduct my research regarding IBM’s role in Nazi Germany and in the Holocaust. Your company has consistently refused to allow me access, indicating the topic of the Holocaust is ‘not a priority’ for IBM…. I again repeat my request that IBM stop stonewalling on this issue and open your archive. I also ask that until that moment comes, you order a halt to any and all purges and/or destruction of Holocaust-era documents. I am writing this letter so there will be no question as to the stonewalling conduct now being displayed by IBM.” I wrote several more letters like that to Gerstner, as did esteemed Holocaust historians and archivists Sybil Milton and Robert Wolfe, as well as Jewish media editors who were aware of my work.
After stalling for months in the face of continued pressure, IBM suddenly took action by transferring about a thousand pages of their Somers, New York, documents to an academic institution. The documents were “loaned.” But IBM did not “lend” this material to any recognized Holocaust or Jewish archive, such as the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C., or even the Center for Jewish History in Manhattan. Instead, an IBM public relations manager called the public relations director at New York University, seeking to transfer the documents to NYU’s Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies, famous for Biblical-era scholarship. Six boxes were abruptly shipped to the departmental chairman Lawrence Schiffman, an esteemed Dead Sea Scrolls scholar. Schiff man, with no idea what was in the boxes, innocently stored them in his office closet. For IBM’s part, the company could tell the media it had donated the files to a scholar—even though the scholar’s expertise was in the study of the Dead Sea Scrolls.
At the same time, an IBM employee group in Germany had separately agreed to allow me access to their files outside Stuttgart. Several years before, IBM Germany had arranged for its Nazi-era files to be shunted to an obscure, abandoned IBM warehouse located a forty-five-minute train ride away from Stuttgart. A group of former German employees in the “IBM Klub” stored the files in a private Hollerith museum called the House of Data. I flew to Stuttgart in September 1999 for my scheduled visit. But Colley learned of the visit and at the last minute instructed the Klub’s amateur historian to deny me access. On a gray, rainy afternoon, I stood in front of the museum door at the appointed hour, hoping to be let in. But the museum was instructed to shut down that day. Talking only into a door intercom, I repeatedly asked, “What are you hiding?” A voice responded, “You must call Ian Colley.”
Later, Colley warned me, “You won’t get access to any IBM facility in the world, no IBM archive, no IBM library.” He also told me the company was getting ready to move the Stuttgart documents to another location.
IBM continued to receive letters of protest. In mid-September and early October 1999, Gerstner and numerous senior managers at IBM received several of these. Sybil Milton wrote Gerstner, “As former senior historian of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, I am aware of the importance of researching the subject of IBM’s involvement with Nazi Germany, including but not limited to its Hollerith machines…. I understand that documents were withdrawn before Mr. Black arrived in Stuttgart and [others were] transferred to the NYU Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies. This appears to be an act of obstruction intended to impede access and research. [The] NYU [department] specializes in Biblical archaeology and pre-twentieth century learning and is inappropriate as an archival repository for IBM materials; indeed the physical transfer and potential disarray of these records seems likely to obstruct further access and research. I have known Mr. Black since the early 1980s. His previous studies have focused on Holocaust-era finances and Jewish affairs and speak for themselves. He is a responsible researcher familiar with the subject. He is thorough and fair in his analysis and writing.” She demanded IBM open its archives to me.