WASHINGTON - A congressional committee approved a resolution Tuesday calling for expediting the opening of millions of Nazi files on concentrations camps and their victims.

Earlier this month, an 11-nation body overseeing the long-secret archive set procedures to open the records stored in Bad Arolsen, Germany by the end of the year. All the member countries must ratify an agreement adopted last year to end the 60-year ban on using the files for research.

The resolution approved by the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the House of Representatives calls on the member countries to ratify quickly. Israel, the U.S, Poland and the Netherlands have done so. Germany, Britain and Luxembourg said they would ratify before the commission meets again in May. National elections in France and Belgium could cause delays, and the status in Italy and Greece was unclear.

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Scholars say the Bad Arolsen files will yield the minutiae of the concentration camps' structures, slave labor records and uncounted testimonies of victims and ordinary Germans.