APPLETON, WIS. — A Marshall University historian and author discusses strategies employed by the Nazis toward ethnic non-Jewish Poles that were tantamount to a “dress rehearsal” for the Holocaust in a Lawrence University address.
Phillip Rutherford presents “‘Racial Reshuffling’ and the Nazi War Economy: An Ordering of Priorities” Monday, Nov. 19 at 4:30 p.m. in Main Hall 201.
A specialist on the Nazi era, Rutherford will examine the origin and implementation of Nazi resettlement schemes at the start of World War II in German-occupied western Poland by deporting what they considered “ethnically inferior” Poles. He also will discuss how these operations evolved into a highly efficient “science” as the Nazis honed their notorious talents for clearing away “undesirable” peoples, paving the way for the Holocaust.
An assistant professor of modern European history at Marshall, Rutherford is the author of the 2007 book “Prelude to the Final Solution: The Nazi Program for Deporting Ethnic Poles, 1939-41.”
Rutherford’s appearance is sponsored by the Marguerite Schumann Memorial Lectureship Fund, established in 1986 to bring speakers to campus that reflect Ms. Schumann’s interests in history, music and writing and the departments of history and German.
