Drew Conference on War Crimes Trials

Drew Center for Holocaust/Genocide Study

Presents Conference on the Legacy of War Crimes Trials

Annual conference commemorates Kristallnacht.

Madison, N.J.—A panel of experts from throughout the Northeast will gather at Drew University on Nov. 12 to trace the history and consequences of war crimes trials from World War II to today at a conference sponsored by the Drew Center for Holocaust/Genocide Study.

The conference, “From Nuremberg to The Hague: The Evolution of War Crimes Trials,” honors the 70th anniversary of the start of the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg. The gathering, which will take place at the Dorothy Young Center for the Arts, is the center’s annual commemoration of Kristallnacht, the “Night of Broken Glass.”

· The first session begins at 9:15 a.m. with a talk by Devin Pendas, an associate professor of history from Boston College who is an expert in the history of war, genocide, war crimes trials and human rights. His talk is titled, The International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg and the Successor Trials, 1945-1948.

· At 10:45 a.m., Lawrence Douglas, a law, jurisprudence and social thought professor from Amherst College who has studied the possibilities and limitations of war crimes as teaching tools, will present John Demjanjuk and The Last Great Holocaust Trial.

· Lunch will be served at noon in Mead Hall, followed by a 1:30 p.m. talk by Elizabeth Turchi, an international human rights attorney who has worked at the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal. She will speak about The Legacy of the Tokyo and Nuremberg Trials: The Current Status of International Criminal Justice Today. Also, during lunch a Holocaust Showcase Exhibition of archival materials about the Nuremberg trials and subsequent international tribunals will be displayed in the Wilson Reading Room of Drew Methodist Library.

All of the speakers will take part in a closing panel at 2:30 p.m.

The Dorothy Young Center for the Arts is on the Drew University campus at 36 Madison Ave. in Madison. Coffee and continental breakfast will be available at 8:30 a.m. before the start of the conference at 9 a.m.

Reservations are required for the conference, and the cost is $20, which includes lunch. For more information or to make reservations, call the Center for Holocaust/Genocide Study at 973-408-3600 or email ctrholst@drew.edu. A full schedule and registration card is available at http://www.drew.edu/chs/events.

Center for Holocaust/Genocide Study

Founded in 1992 as a result of a grant from the New Jersey Commission on Holocaust Education, the Center for Holocaust/Genocide Study offers a variety of events. We schedule – as permanent anchors in our programming – an annual November conference in memory of Kristallnacht (Night of Broken Glass) and an annual Yom HaShoah (Day of Remembrance) commemoration. We also offer films, lectures, performances, workshops, and commemorative events dealing with the Holocaust and with other genocides such as those in Armenia, Bosnia, Cambodia, Darfur, and Rwanda. We enrich Drew’s undergraduate and graduate course work by bringing notable scholars and speakers to campus, by organizing visits to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, and by providing additional resources that enhance the study of Holocaust and genocide. We also support faculty research, for example commissioning an English translation of a German text dealing with Nazi slave labor camps. All events are open to the larger community.

About Drew University

Drew University, a Phi Beta Kappa liberal arts university, includes the College of Liberal Arts, the Drew Theological School and the Caspersen School of Graduate Studies. Drew is located on a beautiful, wooded, 186-acre campus in Madison, New Jersey, a thriving small town close to New York City. Particularly noteworthy opportunities for undergraduates include the Wall Street Semester, Semester at the United Nations, Semester on Contemporary Art and Semester on Communications and Media in New York City, and several international semester programs. The university is home to the Center for Civic Engagement, the Drew Summer Science Institute, the Charles A. Dana Research Center for Scientists Emeriti (RISE) and the Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey, an independent professional theater, as well as the United Methodist Archives and History Center and one of the country’s leading concentrations of materials on Willa Cather.