Coming Soon – Deadly Medicine: Creating the Master Race

Special Exhibit – Deadly Medicine: Creating the Master Race
On Display July 25, 2012 – October 15, 2012

From 1933 to 1945, Nazi Germany carried out a campaign to “cleanse” German society of people viewed as biological threats to the nation’s “health.” Enlisting the help of physicians and medically trained geneticists, psychiatrists and anthropologists, the Nazis developed racial health policies that started with the mass sterilization of “hereditarily diseased” persons and ended with the near annihilation of European Jewry. Deadly Medicine: Creating the Master Race traces this history from the early 20th-century international eugenics movement to the Nazi regime’s “science of race.” It also challenges viewers to reflect on the present-day interest in genetic manipulation that promotes the possibility of human perfection.

This exhibition was produced by The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and sponsored locally by the Tulane School of Medicine.
 

Schedule of Events

All events are free and open to the public.

Wednesday, August 1, 2012
5:00 pm reception/6:00 pm presentation
The National WWII Museum – Louisiana Memorial Pavilion
Public Opening Reception & Meet the Curator: Dr Susan Bachrach
Join the curator of Deadly Medicine: Creating the Master Race, Susan Bachrach from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, as she discusses the creation of this thought-provoking exhibition and the inspiration behind it. For more information, call 504-528-1944 x 229.
Register for this event.

Wednesday, August 8, 2012
6:30 pm – 8:00 pm
The National WWII Museum – Stage Door Canteen
Book Discussion – Sophie’s Choice
The plot ultimately centers around a tragic decision which Sophie was forced to make upon entering the concentration camp. Join us for a discussion on this moving book. For more information, call 504-528-1944 x 229.

Wednesday, August 15, 2012
7:00 pm – 9:00 pm
The National WWII Museum – Stage Door Canteen
Film Screening – Sophie’s Choice
This film tells the story of a Polish immigrant, Sophie, and her tempestuous lover who share a boarding house with a young writer in Brooklyn. The film stars Meryl Streep, Kevin Kline and Peter MacNicol. For more information, call 504-528-1944 x 229.

Thursday, August 23, 2012
3:00 pm – 6:00 pm
The National WWII Museum – The Joe W. and D.D. Brown Foundation Special Exhibit Gallery
Educator Open House
Area teachers are invited to view the special exhibition.  Educational materials relating to the exhibit will be available and museum education staff will be on hand to answer questions. For more information, call 504-528-1944 x 229. Pre-registration is requested.

Monday, August 27, 2012
5:00 pm
Tulane School of Medicine – Auditorium, 1430 Tulane Avenue
Justifying the Unthinkable: The ‘Ethics’ of Nazi Medical Experimentation by Arthur Caplan
The field of bioethics has either remained silent in the face of Nazi crimes or accepted the myths that Nazi biomedicine was inept, mad, or coerced.  The fact is that many of those who committed the crimes of the Holocaust were competent physicians and scientists who acted from strong moral convictions.  The puzzle of how it came to be that physicians and scientists who caused so much suffering and death did so in the belief that they were morally right is the focus of this presentation. For more information, call 504-528-1944 x 229.
Register for this event.

Thursday, September 6, 2012
5:00 pm reception/6:00 pm presentation/7:00 pm book signing
The National WWII Museum – Louisiana Memorial Pavilion
Ethics in Medicine and Research: Lessons from Dr. Mengele’s Lab by Eva Kor
Meet this survivor of Nazi medical experiments and hear her remarkable story. For more information, call 504-528-1944 x 229.
Register for this event.

Thursday, September 13, 2012
6:30 pm
Tulane Uptown Campus – Dixon Hall
The Ethics of Using Medical Data from Nazi Experiments by Baruch Cohen
Following World War II, leading Nazi doctors were brought to justice at Nuremberg after revealing evidence of sadistic human experiments at concentration camps.  Since the Nuremberg trials, our society has had to confront the reality that the Nazi doctors were guilty of premeditated murder masqueraded as research. But what about the continued use of the Nazi doctors’ medical research? Is it ever appropriate to use data as morally repugnant as that which was extracted from victims of Nazism? Is so, under what circumstances? Civil Trial Attorney Baruch Cohen presents from a Jewish ethical perspective. For more information, call 504-528-1944 x 229.

Thursday, September 20, 2012
7:00 pm
Newcomb College – Woldenberg Art Center, Freeman Auditorium
Lecture – “The Thief of the Future: The Holocaust – Women, Reproductive Science, Eugenics and the State”
by Laurie Zoloth, Ph.D.
It was not only the lives of Jewish women that were the target of Nazi genocide, it was the very thought of a Jewish future, carried in the bodies of Jewish women.  Throughout the campaign of extermination, a second campaign was conducted to prevent reproduction; women bore the brunt of this campaign. The Nazi “experiments” carried out in the name of reproductive science were done by the most prestigious physicians in Germany, as a part of a larger vision of a future in which eugenics shaped the human future. Thus began an era in which the control of the human future was the most critical battleground of all. The 2012 Daspit Women in Science Lecture is presented by Professor Laurie Zoloth, Director of The Brady Program in Ethics and Public Life at Northwestern University. For more information, call 504-865-5422 or email cheaney@tulane.edu. 

Wednesday, October 10, 2012
12:00 pm – 1:00 pm
The National WWII Museum – Orientation Center
Lagniappe Lecture – Unit 731 by Walt Burgoyne
In August of 1945, the Soviet Union invaded Japanese Manchukuo. At Japanese compound Unit 731, thousands of rats were released from their cages. They carried millions of bubonic plague-infested fleas to the nearby cities of Harbin and Pingfan. The humans intentionally exposed to plague in camp had already been slaughtered by the Japanese; and the compound burned, to erase damning evidence. Learn about little-known Unit 731, and the unbelievable atrocities committed there, from Education Programs Coordinator Walt Burgoyne. For more information, call 504-528-1944 x 229.

Thursday, October 11, 2012
6:00 pm – 7:30 pm
Panel Discussion – Deadly Medicine’s Influence on Contemporary Public Health Policy
The National WWII Museum – Stage Door Canteen
Looking at the era of “Deadly Medicine” from a public health perspective, what have we learned from it? How do modern medical leaders influence policy by learning from the past? Join local and state medical leaders as they discuss how current medical research has been influenced by the past. Panelists include Dr. Benjamin Sachs, Dean Tulane School of Medicine; Dr. Karen DeSalvo, Commissioner of Public Health, City of New Orleans; Dr. Bruce Greenstein, Secretary Department of Health and Hospitals, State of Louisiana; Dr. Laura Levy, Vice President for Research, Immunology and Microbiology, Tulane University; and Dr Samir El-Dahr, Vice President for Research, Pediatric Nephrology, Tulane University. Dr Guenter Bischof, Director Center Austria, University of New Orleans will introduce.
Register for this event.

Note that some events will be held at off-site locations. Programs subject to change.