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Press Release: May 20, 2010

National Archives at Kansas City

National Archives at Kansas City and Midwest Center for Holocaust Education to host Professor Harry Reicher

Kansas City, (MO)…On June 2, the Midwest Center for Holocaust Education and the National Archives at Kansas City, in cooperation with the Center for Practical Bioethics, will host Professor Harry Reicher, of the University of Pennsylvania Law School, who will speak at 7:00 p.m. on “The Doctors’ Trial at Nuremberg: Medicine in the Third Reich” at the Extreme Screen at Union Station, located next to National Archives. Reicher’s presentation will include a discussion the American military’s proceedings against German physicians and administrators for their participation in the T-4 “euthanasia” program, medical experimentation on human beings, and the systematic murder of those the Nazis deemed "life unworthy of life." This presentation is presented in conjunction with Deadly Medicine: Creating the Master Race–a traveling exhibition on loan from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. The exhibition will be open for viewing and a reception will be held from 5:30 until 6:30 p.m. at the National Archives prior to his talk.

Born in Prague and raised in Australia, Harry Reicher is a graduate of Monash University, in Melbourne, with graduate law degrees from the University of Melbourne and Harvard Law School. From 1995-2004, he was Director of International Affairs and Representative to the United Nations of Agudath Israel World Organization, in which capacity he practiced international law and diplomacy in the field of human rights, with particular emphasis on freedom of religion. In addition, he was heavily involved in Holocaust-era restitution, reparations and compensation, and the plethora of litigation arising therefrom. As a Barrister at Law, he has argued cases before a range of courts and tribunals, including the High Court of Australia, and the courts of England, up to the House of Lords (and also in the United States). He has taught at Penn Law School since 1995, and has pioneered what is effectively a new academic discipline, combining Holocaust studies and law. In 2004, President Bush appointed him to the United States Holocaust Memorial Council. He has published in the Columbia Journal of Transnational Law and is the editor of Australian International Law: Cases and Materials, the first-ever indigenous Australian Casebook on international law.

For more information or to make a reservation call 816-268-8010 or register by e-mailing: kansascity.educate@nara.gov

Deadly Medicine: Creating the Master Race examines how Nazi leadership, in collaboration with individuals in professions traditionally charged with healing and the public good, used science to help legitimize persecution, murder and, ultimately, genocide. From 1933–1945, Germany enlisted the help of physicians, scientists, public health officials and academic experts to develop racial policies aimed at “cleansing” German society of individuals viewed as biological threats to the nation’s “health”. What began with the mass sterilization of “genetically diseased” persons resulted in the near annihilation of European Jewry. This exhibition features original artifacts, photographs, documents and historic film footage illustrating how Hitler’s Nazi regime implemented its vision of an ethnically homogeneous community through a program of racial eugenics that culminated in the Holocaust.

Deadly Medicine: Creating the Master Race is organized and circulated by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Deadly Medicine is sponsored in part by The Samberg Family Foundation, the Dorot Foundation, the Viterbi Family Foundation of the Jewish Community Foundation of San Diego, and the Rosenbluth Family—Al, Sylvia, Bill, and Jerry. Additional support was provided by the Takiff Family Foundation and the David Berg Foundation. The Kansas City presentation of Deadly Medicine is made possible by the generous support of Saint Luke’s Health System, The Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, the Missouri Humanities Council, the Kansas Humanities Council, Sprint Foundation and Oppenstein Brothers Foundation. Bus subsidies have been provided by the Earl J. and Leona K. Tranin Special Fund and the Flo Harris Supporting Foundation of the Jewish Community Foundation of Greater Kansas City.

Admission, hours, and additional information

Deadly Medicine is a free exhibition and will be open through June 10, 2010. Viewer discretion advised as this exhibition contains material that may be disturbing to some viewers. The National Archives at Kansas City is open Tuesday-Saturday 9:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. for exhibits viewing and Tuesday-Saturday from 8:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m. for research. Free parking is available for National Archives visitors, with additional free parking available in the Union Station Parking Garage on the west side of Union Station.

The National Archives at Kansas City is one of 13 facilities nationwide where the public has access to Federal archival records. It is home to more than 50,000 cubic feet of historical records dating from the 1820s to the 1990s created or received by nearly 100 Federal agencies. Serving the Central Plains Region, the archives holds records from the states of Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, and South Dakota. The facility is located at 400 West Pershing Road, Kansas City, MO 64108. It is open to the public Tuesday - Saturday from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. for research, with the exhibits open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. For more information, call 816-268-8000 or visit: www.archives.gov/central-plains.

The Midwest Center for Holocaust Education (MCHE) was founded in 1993 by Holocaust survivors. Our mission is to teach the history and lessons of the Holocaust, applying its lessons to counter indifference, intolerance, and genocide. Located at the Jewish Community Campus in Overland Park, KS, MCHE serves people of all faiths and cultures in Kansas, western Missouri and elsewhere in the Midwest. We serve teachers, students (primarily grades 7 through college) as well as civic and community groups through exhibits, speakers, films, an annual essay contest, teacher education, and a resource library. We honor local survivors and their experiences by recording and communicating their stories to every generation. To find out more, go to www.mchekc.org.

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NREA 10–27

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