Charley Turquoise, left, a Navajo Indian, and other Arizona Indians ban the swastika because of Nazi "acts of oppression.” Indians studying the proclamation banning the use of the swastika at a ceremony at which blankets and clothing bearing the now unpopular symbol were burned, 1940. Associated Press Photo/Sydney Morning Herald/SuperStock
Territorial Expansion in Nazi Europe and the United States in the 19th and 20th Centuries
Between 1939 and 1945, as part of their efforts to eliminate Jews from the European continent, the Nazi dictatorship removed people from the Reich they considered unworthy of being citizens because they did not fit into their vision of the racial “national community.” They forcibly displaced Jews, whom they called “undesirables,” eastward into ghettos where conditions were extremely harsh, simultaneously expanding their borders to create “living space” for their “racially pure” Germans. In a much different context, the democratic United States expanded its borders westward during the 19th and 20th centuries. To free up land for its growing population, the United States violently removed Indigenous peoples, whom some Americans perceived as incompatible with national and racial ideals. While these two histories are distinct, by discussing them together, we can learn new things about how and why they unfolded.
Join us with two major scholars of these topics in a program designed to illuminate some phenomena common to the persecution histories of those considered “others” in society, as well as what is unique in each of these experiences.
Speakers
Dr. Elise Boxer, Director, Institute of American Indian Studies; Associate Professor, Department of History, University of South Dakota; Author, “The Book of Mormon as Mormon Settler Colonialism” in Essays on American Indian & Mormon History
Dr. Edward B. Westermann, Regents Professor of History, Texas A&M University–San Antonio; Author, Hitler’s Ostkrieg and the Indian Wars: Comparing Genocide and Conquest
Moderator
Dr. Wendy Rohleder-Sook, Chair, Department of Communication Studies, Law, and Political Science; Assistant Professor of Political Science; Director of Pre-Law/Legal Studies, Fort Hays State University
This in-person and livestream discussion is free and open to the public, but registration is required.
For more information, contact Dr. Amber Nickell at 785.628.5874 or annickell2@fhsu.edu or Professor Hollie Marquess at 785.628.5869 or hamarquess@fhsu.edu.
Joseph and Rebecca Meyerhoff of Baltimore, Maryland, were active philanthropists in the United States and abroad, focusing especially on Jewish learning and scholarship, music, the arts, and humanitarian causes. Their children, Eleanor Katz and Harvey M. Meyerhoff, former member and chairman emeritus of the United States Holocaust Memorial Council, have endowed this lecture.
The mission of the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Center, part of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, is to ensure the long-term growth and vitality of Holocaust Studies. To do that, it is essential to provide opportunities for new generations of scholars. The vitality and the integrity of Holocaust Studies require openness, independence, and free inquiry, so that new ideas are generated and tested through peer review and public debate. The opinions of scholars expressed before, during, or after their activities with the Mandel Center do not represent and are not endorsed by the Mandel Center or the Museum.