Holocaust Scholar To Speak
Beth Griech-Polelle to give lecture entitled, “Between Confrontation and Complicity: Bishop von Galen and the Catholic Response to Euthanasia and Genocide in Nazi Germany”
Buffalo, NY – Beth Griech-Polelle, assistant professor of history at Bowling Green University, will speak at Canisius College on Tuesday, April 9 at 8:00 p.m. in the Grupp Fireside Lounge located in the Richard E. Winter ’42 Student Center.The lecture entitled, “Between Confrontation and Complicity: Bishop von Galen and the Catholic Response to Euthanasia and Genocide in Nazi Germany,” is free and open to the public.
Professor Griech-Polelle will discuss the career of Bishop Clemens August von Galen, the Bishop of Munster from 1933 until his death in 1946. Von Galen earned the title “The Lion of Munster” in 1941 for publicly denouncing the Nazi practice of euthanasia. However, von Galen remained silent on the issue of genocide and the Nazi campaign to exterminate European Jewry. Griech-Polelle will examine this paradox in von Galen’s career and try to explain why he remained silent on the fate of the Jews.
Professor Griech-Polelle earned a Ph.D. in history from Rutgers University in 1999. Her book, “Bishop von Galen: German Catholicism and National Socialism,” is scheduled for publication by Yale University Press in the fall of 2002.
The event is made possible through the college’s Oishei Teaching Professorship, which is funded through the John R. Oishei Foundation. The program enables members of the Canisius faculty to develop creative and exciting academic programs, which if chosen, are funded through the Oishei Program. Drs. Larry E. Jones and Nancy J. Rosenbloom, professors of history, were among the faculty members chosen to receive an Oishei Professorship for their proposal – “The Jewish Experience in Comparative Perspective: Europe and America.”
For further information regarding the lecture, please call Dr. Larry Jones in the Canisius College History Department at 716-888-2686.
Canisius College is one of 28 Jesuit colleges in the nation and the premier private college in Western New York. Canisius prepares leaders – intelligent, caring, faithful individuals – able to pursue and promote excellence in their professions, communities and service to humanity.