Mar 20, 2015

Columbia State Welcomes Holocaust Speaker March 25


Photo Caption: A participant in the Mandel Center's College Outreach Lecture Program, Dr. Joseph White regularly speaks on the origins and course of World War I, the Weimar Republic, the Nazi regime, Nazi camps and ghettos, the Auschwitz bombing controversy, and Nazi art theft.

(COLUMBIA, Tenn. - March 20, 2015) - - - Columbia State Community College's Lyceum Committee welcomes Holocaust expert, Dr. Joseph White to the Ledbetter Auditorium Wednesday, March 25 from 1-2:20 p.m.

"Dr. White will speak on a photo album that once belonged to Karl Höcker, the last adjutant of the Auschwitz concentration camp," said Dr. Jan de la Mer, Columbia State assistant professor of history. "He will also be accompanied by survivor Art Pais who will speak about his experiences. Dr. White is a distinguished Holocaust scholar, and we are looking forward to have him here."

White is an applied research scholar in the Jack, Joseph, and Morton Mandel Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC, where he contributes to the "United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos" and is currently editing Volume 3, "The Camps and Ghettos under European Regimes aligned with Nazi Germany."

His other published works can be found in "PRISM: An Interdisciplinary Journal for Holocaust Educators," "Journal of Jewish Identities," "Holocaust and Genocide Studies," and "Evoking Genocide: Researchers and Activists Describe the Works of Art and Media that Changed their Lives."

White serves on the historical advisory boards of the Greatest Theft in History Educational Program, which concerns the history of Nazi art theft and Allied efforts to protect cultural treasures from war damage and to restore looted art to rightful owners.

White has taught courses on 20th century Europe, Germany since 1914, Nazi Germany, and World War II at the University of Maryland University College. He earned a Ph.D. in Modern European history at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, after receiving bachelor's and master's degrees in history at Georgia State University.

The Ledbetter Auditorium is in the Frank G. Clement Building on the Columbia Campus, located at 1665 Hampshire Pike. The lecture is free and open to the public.

Columbia State is a two-year college, serving a nine-county area in southern Middle Tennessee with locations in Columbia, Franklin, Lawrenceburg, Lewisburg and Clifton. As Tennessee's first community college, Columbia State is committed to increasing access and enhancing diversity at all five campuses. Columbia State is a member of the Tennessee Board of Regents, one of the largest higher education systems in the nation. For more information, please visit www.columbiastate.edu.

Tennessee's Community Colleges is a system of 13 colleges offering a high-quality, affordable, convenient and personal education to prepare students to achieve their educational and career goals in two years or less. We offer associate degree and certificate programs, workforce development programs and transfer pathways to four-year degrees. For more information, please visit us online at tncommunitycolleges.org.

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