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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.
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