Professor Sarah Federman, University of San Diego
In the immediate decades after World War II, the French National Railways (SNCF) was celebrated for its acts of wartime heroism. However, recent debates and litigation have revealed the ways the SNCF worked as an accomplice to the Third Reich and was actively complicit in the deportation of 75,000 Jews and other civilians to death camps. Sarah Federman delves into the interconnected roles—perpetrator, victim, and hero—the company took on during the harrowing years of the Holocaust and its long journey to make amends for its role in the Holocaust. Based on 120 interviews, including 90 with Holocaust survivors, Federman will discuss the complex question of what happens when corporations engage in (and avoid) reckoning work.
The book upon which this talk is based won a Nautilus Award for Investigative Journalism.
This program will be on Zoom, registration required.
This talk is supported by the Thomas and Diann Mann Symposium Fund.