The Institute for Law and the Humanities is pleased to announce that nationally known Nazi Holocaust scholar Harry Reicher, who is Adjunct Professor at University of Pennsylvania Law School and Scholar-in-Residence at Touro Law School, will speak at Chicago-Kent on November 4, 2009, at 3 pm in the Event Room. A reception follows at 4 pm. All faculty, staff and students, as well as the public, are invited.
The title of his presentation is The Nazi Obsession with Legalizing the Holocaust. Here is his description:
"The Nazi Holocaust represented the ultimate in sheer, brutal lawlessness. Yet the Nazi regime in Germany went to extraordinary lengths to legalize what it was doing, thereby creating the ultimate oxymoron, pseudo-legal terror. This presentation will examine the perversion of the country's legal system, in both its legislative and judicial aspects, and the conversion of both into savage instruments designed to discriminate against, ostracize, dehumanize, and ultimately eliminate certain classes of people, Jews first and foremost (but not exclusively). This is a little-known dimension of the Holocaust, one that added another weapon to the armory trained by the Nazis against their victims, and that prompted the court in the trial of the Nazi lawyers and judges at Nuremberg to summarize, very powerfully: 'The dagger of the assassin was concealed beneath the robe of the jurist.'"
Please mark this important event on your calendar. It is being co-sponsored by the Chicago-Kent chapters of the American Constitution Society, the Kent Justice Foundation and the Jewish Law Students Association (Decalogue). We hope to see you there.
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