“Hitler’s Furies: German Women in the Nazi Killing Fields” will be the topic of a lecture presented by Dr. Wendy Lower on Thursday, March 16 at 7:00 pm at the Holocaust Museum and Learning Center.
Drawing from wartime documents, postwar trials, private letters, diaries and interviews, this lecture focuses on outstanding cases of women who became direct witnesses, accomplices and perpetrators of the Holocaust. In the colonial outposts of the Nazi East, German women were an integral part of the society of perpetrators. They enjoyed privileges as members of the new ruling elite, and they possessed extreme power over the lives of Jews and other victims of the Holocaust. What some of these women chose to do with this newfound power during the war and how they distorted their criminal behavior after the war are the main themes of this presentation.
Dr. Wendy Lower is the Acting Director of the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies. Her research and teaching focus on the history of genocide, the Holocaust and human rights. Lower is the author of Hitler’s Furies: German Women in the Nazi Killing Fields (Houghton, 2013), which was a finalist for the National Book Award and has been translated into 23 languages. She wrote Nazi Empire Building and Holocaust in Ukraine (UNC Press, published in association with the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, 2005), and edited The Diary of Samuel Golfard and Holocaust in Galicia (Routledge, published in association with the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, 2011). Lower joined the faculty of Claremont McKenna College in 2012 and is currently the John K. Roth Professor of History. Prior to that, she taught at Ludwig-Maximilians University, Munich Germany (2007-2012), where she was German Research Foundation grant recipient.
Reception to follow; dietary laws observed. This presentation is open to the public and free of charge. Seating is limited, reservations are required. For further information or to RSVP, please contact Andrew Goldfeder at 314-442-3711 or AGoldfeder@JFedSTL.org.
This program is generously supported by Devy and Jerry Goldenberg, as well as Julia and Scott Williams in honor of Dr. Steven Lauter on the occasion of his retirement.