MEDIA CONTACT: Alan K. Cubbage at 847-491-4886 or a-cubbage@northwestern.edu

October 23, 2001

Holocaust Education Foundation Gift Enables Northwestern
To Establish Professorship in Holocaust Studies; First Lecture Set

EVANSTON, Ill. --- Funded by a gift from the Holocaust Educational Foundation, Northwestern University will establish an endowed professorship in Holocaust Studies, announced University President Henry S. Bienen.

The endowed chair will be held by Peter F. Hayes, who holds appointments in the departments of history and German at Northwestern, and who has earned an international reputation for his scholarship on Nazi Germany and the Holocaust. Hayes recently was the distinguished scholar-in-residence at the U.S. Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C.

The chair will be named the Theodore Zev Weiss – Holocaust Educational Foundation Chair in Holocaust Studies. It will be the first endowed chair in Holocaust Studies at Northwestern. Weiss is the long-time president of the Wilmette-based foundation, and is himself a survivor of Auschwitz.

"This gift from the Foundation will enable Northwestern to continue to improve and expand its program in Holocaust Studies," Bienen said. "The University is deeply appreciative of this significant commitment and very pleased that the Foundation has provided these resources."

Professor Hayes will give the inaugural lecture as holder of the endowed chair at 5 p.m. Nov. 1 in Room 107, Harris Hall, 1881 Sheridan Road, on Northwestern’s Evanston campus. The lecture, "Prejudice, Power, and Persecution: Telling Tales from the Corporate World of Nazi Germany," will examine conflicting motives and actions of German corporate executives in the course of Nazi persecution.

The Holocaust Educational Foundation was established in 1976 to record permanently the testimony of survivors of the Holocaust. In 1988, the Foundation provided funding to help establish a course at Northwestern, The History of the Holocaust. The course is offered annually at Northwestern and now enrolls approximately 150 students a year. Similar courses have been established at other institutions with the assistance of the Foundation.

In addition, the Foundation organized the Lessons and Legacies Conferences, which are gatherings of academic scholars who teach in areas relating to the Holocaust. The conferences are held every two years and Northwestern University Press publishes the proceedings.

Northwestern hosts an annual summer Institute for Holocaust and Jewish Civilization, which was established and is funded by the Foundation. The Institute provides up to 35 fellowships to professors and Ph.D. candidates who participate in an intensive two-week program taught by distinguished scholars. President Bienen serves as the honorary chair for the Institute.

A Holocaust survivor, Weiss was deported to Auschwitz with his parents, a brother and a sister. Upon arrival they were separated and he never saw them again. He was in Birkenau, an extermination camp, and also worked as a slave laborer before finally being liberated in Austria by the American army. He came to the United States in 1956 and was a teacher and principal for 35 years in addition to being president of the Holocaust Educational Foundation, which was established in 1976.

Hayes, who has studied extensively in Germany, is the author of the prize-winning "Industry and Ideology: I.G. Farben in the Nazi Era," the definitive study of the largest economic entity during the Nazi era. He is currently completing two other works: "Profits and Persecution: German Big Business and the Holocaust" and "Degussa in the Third Reich."

A recipient of Northwestern’s Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences Distinguished Teaching Award and Faculty Service Award, he is also on the academic committee of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council and the academic advisory board of the concentration camp memorials at Buchenwald and Dora.

Hayes, who joined the Northwestern faculty in 1980, has published numerous articles in American, English, German and French journals and has lectured widely in America and Europe.