Foremost Scholar On The Holocaust To Speak On The Nazi Camps

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — Professor Henry Friedlander, one of today’s most prominent scholars of the Nazi Holocaust and Professor of Judaic Studies at the City University of New York, will visit the University of Arkansas on November 13 to speak on "The Nazi Camps" at 7:30 p.m. in Giffels Auditorium, Old Main. The public is invited.

Born in Berlin in 1930, Friedlander immigrated to the United States in 1947 and became a U.S. citizen in 1952. He received his B.A. in history from Temple University, and his M.A. and Ph.D. in modern German history from the University of Pennsylvania. He served on the project of the Committee for the Study of War Documents, microfilming captured German documents.

"Professor Friedlander’s meticulous, innovative research has significantly altered our understanding of the Holocaust, most notably in revealing the crucial role played by physicians, scientists, and professional administrators in the development of Hitler’s program of mass murder," said Evan Bukey, UA history professor and author of Hitler’s Austria: Popular Sentiment in the Nazi Era, 1938-1945.

Since 1970, Professor Friedlander's research has focused on Nazi Germany and the Holocaust. He co-edited The Holocaust: Ideology, Bureaucracy, and Genocide (1980) and the 26-volume documentary series Archives of the Holocaust (1988-93). He is the author of The German Revolution of 1918 and The Origins of Nazi Genocide: From Euthanasia to the Final Solution, a selection of the History Book Club and winner of the Bruno Brand Tolerance Book Award from the Simon Wiesenthal Center. The book has also been translated into Italian and Chinese.

Mark Cory, director of the European Studies Program, said Professor Friedlander is one of the signal voices in Holocaust Studies. "His visit will be a marvelous opportunity for our students to learn from someone who has been at the forefront of scholarship in this hugely important but very difficult field."

Professor Friedlander's recent research has also focused on the legal implications of postwar trials, an investigation that resulted in numerous articles, including "Nazi Criminals in the United States: The Fedorenko Case," "The Trials of the Nazi Criminals: Law, Justice, and History," and "German Laws and German Crimes in the Nazi Era."

He has won several fellowships and grants, including a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Senior Fellowship at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, and a Fellowship from the Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture. His visit is being sponsored by the Department of History, the European Studies Program, and the European Studies Club in the J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences.