One of the world's top authories on the Holocaust visited the California school for a week in early October.
Elon University Professor David N. Crowe delivered two invited lectures this month at Chapman University in California that were part of the school’s “Moving History Forward: Perspectives on the Holocaust” series.
Sponsored by the Rodgers Center for Holocaust Education, Crowe spent a week at Chapman teaching classes and lecturing on a variety of topics related to the Holocaust and its effects on the Jewish community.
His Oct. 1 remarks, “Oskar Schindler, Raphael Lemkin and the Question of Genocide: The Trial of Amon Goeth,” explored the connection between Oskar Schindler, a Nazi Party member and prominent industrialist; Raphael Lemkin, a Jewish lawyer who first described the idea of genocide; and the sadistic Amon Goeth, whose command of a concentration camp in Poland was depicted by actor Ralph Fiennes in the 1993 film “Schindler’s List.”
After World War II, Goeth was the first person charged, tried and convicted for the crime of genocide.
Crowe’s Oct. 3 lecture, “The Unknown Holocaust: Nazi Persecution of the Roma During the Shoah,” gave an in-depth look at the Nazi racial policy and its impact on persecution and death of a group often referred to as “gypsies.”
Crowe holds appointments at the Elon University School of Law and in the Department of History and Geography. He is the recipient of the Southern Conference on Slavic Studies’ 2010 Richard Stites Senior Scholar Award and Elon University’s Distinguished Scholar Award.