Associated Editor

David Bayer's tenure as an inmate at a Nazi concentration camp was marked by unspeakable horrors, including surgery without benefit of anesthesia.

"They cut you alive, and the doctor is looking at my face and smiling," recalled Bayer, 85, a resident of Silver Spring.

For better or worse, Bayer now has detailed documentation of that nightmarish episode, thanks in part to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, which recently retrieved the information for him.

The Washington, D.C., museum is one of 11 designated repositories worldwide of Shoah-related data provided by the International Tracing Service, a massive, German-based archive established by the Allies after World War II. The ITS files have been opened ‹ and its information is now being disseminated ‹ as part of long-awaited, multinational agreement that was ratified in late November.

The museum announced last week that it has begun accepting requests for ITS data, and it has received at least 1,600 such inquiries since early December, according to USHMM spokespersons.

Some critics would like to see the archives more publicly accessible.

To test the information-retrieval system ‹ and subsequently discuss it during twin briefings held Thursday for the press and survivors' groups ‹ the museum has conducted more than 100 sample searches on behalf of survivors, including Bayer, a museum volunteer. He was first a prisoner in Auschwitz and then at the nearby subcamp known as Jaworzno, where he worked in a coal mine and where his throat was operated on, he said, as part of a Nazi experiment.

"They sewed me up and I went back to work," said Bayer, who lost 70 family members in the Shoah, including his parents and three siblings.

The ITS records documenting Bayer's surgery include the date and nature of the procedure, its exact location, the name of the doctor involved and the number of the tatoo Bayer still carries on his arm, B-74. When he first saw that information, about five weeks ago, "I was shocked and upset," said Bayer. "I never thought I would see it."

He added: "There are thousands and millions of deniers who say this kind of thing never happened. This proved that I was right. The deniers should also know what happened ‹ in black and white."

The data now housed at the museum ‹ the sole designated ITS repository in the United States ‹ consists of some 68 million digital images, and that is expected to surpass 100 million by the time the information transfer is completed in 2010.

Requests for ITS information can be accessed in several ways, including filling out an online form that is available on the museum Web site, www.ushmm.org. The completed form can be submitted electronically, through the mail or via fax. Requests will generally take six-eight weeks to process, according to museum representatives. Survivors and their families can also visit the museum and search the archive directly through one of about 20 on-site computer terminals, often with the help of a museum staffer. There are now about 25 researchers for that purpose, but more will be trained, said Michael Haley Goldman, director of the museum's Registry of Holocaust Survivors. The registry has a toll-free number: 866-912-4385.

The information-retrieval system is designed primarily for survivors, their families and those seeking information on behalf of survivors, rather than for outside researchers, who can only access the ITS files by visiting the museum. Survivor-related information requests will generally be handled on a first-come, first-served basis, except for those involving restitution claims, which will be given top priority, according to Andrew Hollinger, the museum's director of media relations.

However, the ITS database is not capable of being searched by off-site computers, according to museum representatives. They said it would be enormously time-consuming and labor-intensive to convert the archive into an information repository accessible to anyone with a computer.

In addition, there are no immediate plans to set up satellite computers that could perform the same tasks as those at the museum ‹ but USHMM spokespersons said they would not rule that out as an option. In the meantime, the museum's focus is on training staff, fine-tuning the in-house search system, and "getting complete and accurate information to people as quickly as possible," said Hollinger.

Nevertheless, critics of the current setup have charged that Holocaust survivors and others who are unable to travel to Washington ‹ and thereby benefit from on-site experts who can guide them through complex data searches ‹ will effectively be deprived of important archival information.

"It would be nice for people to be able to sit down at their computer where it's convenient for them," said Esther Finder, president of The Generation After, an organization representing children and other descendents of Holocaust survivors in the Washington area.

"I'm not a computer person, but it sounds like a good idea so people wouldn't have to schlep so far to get the information," said Holocaust survivor Henry Greenbaum, 79, who lives in Bethesda. "But I'm happy that its coming at all. I had no idea it existed."