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European leaders

STOCKHOLM: European leaders will urge governments around the world on Friday to open their archives to help track down Nazi war criminals and to prevent the Holocaust from ever happening again.

A conference on remembering the Holocaust attended by about 20 presidents and prime ministers will call on governments to do whatever necessary to open archives and release documents on the Holocaust, conference sources said.

It will also state the duty of the international community to fight modern genocide, ethnic cleansing and racism, they said. Nazis killed six million Jews during World War Two.

Swedish Prime Minister Goran Persson launched the plea in an emotional ceremony on Thursday marking the anniversary of the 1945 liberation of the Auschwitz death camp, describing the Holocaust as the worst crime of the 20th Century.

"We must never forget. No matter how much we learn, one question always remains -- why?" Persson told hundreds of sombre worshippers at Stockholm's main synagogue.

"Let us call governments, non-government organisations and businesses around the world to open up their archives, to open up for more enlightenment of the Holocaust," he said.

Delegates from the 46 countries attending the international Holocaust conference in Stockholm, which closes on Friday, said Persson's plea would be a pillar of its final declaration.

"War criminals wherever they are should be prosecuted. There is no excuse for failing to disclose documents from the Nazi era," U.S. deputy Treasury Secretary Stuart Eizenstat said.

"There must be more urgency in declassifying these documents and making them accessible," he told reporters.

Latvian President Vaira Vike-Freiberga promised on Thursday to pursue suspected war criminals after the Nazi-hunting Simon Wiesenthal Centre produced names of men who may have evidence against Latvian army officer Konrad Kalejs.

"We accept no excuse for their actions. We accept no mitigation to their guilt," she told the conference.

Kalejs, a naturalised Australian citizen living in Melbourne, is alleged to have been an active member of a hit squad responsible for 30,000 deaths during the 1941-44 Nazi occupation of Latvia.-Reuters