The Center for Holocaust Studies will hold a symposium, "Breeding Better Germans and Vermonters: Nazi and American Eugenics in History and Memory," on March 28, from 1 to 5 p.m. in Memorial Lounge, Waterman Building. The talks are free and open to the public.
"What makes the symposium unique," says Alan Steinweis, professor of history and director of the Center for Holocaust Studies, is that it places the eugenics program in Nazi Germany and its historical legacy in a transatlantic context. That is not often done."
Among the presentations will be innovative research by historian Patricia Heberer from the United States Holocaust Museum where she is a specialist on medical crimes and eugenics. Heberer is among a few scholars to be granted access to personal patient records of Germans who were murdered as a result of the Nazi eugenics program. The records had been closed for research because of confidentiality laws.
"She gives a name and an identity to victims of a genocidal eugenics program who previously had been anonymous," says Steinweis. "I think that's morally very compelling."
Along with the Nazi program the symposium will also confront -- and realistically contrast -- the eugenics movement in America. Local resident Nancy Gallagher, author of Breeding Better Vermonters: The Eugenics Project in the Green Mountain State, will discuss her recent work on the program's impact on Vermont families who were targeted for extinction. Gallagher examines how Holocaust scholarship has served as both an obstacle and a catalyst in confronting eugenics here and recognizing its continuing influence in Vermont culture and politics.