“Demjanjuk in Munich”
Professional Background
Lawrence Douglas is the James J. Grofeld Professor of Law, Jurisprudence and Social Thought, Amherst College (USA). He earned his AB from Brown University in 1982 and his JD from Yale University in 1989. Douglas is the prize-winning author of several books, including The Memory of Judgment: Making Law and History in the Trials of the Holocaust, a widely acclaimed study of war crimes trials, and two novels, The Catastrophist (2007) and The Vices (2011). He has co-edited twelve books on contemporary legal issues, and has lectured in many countries, including addresses to the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia and the International Criminal Court. The recipient of major fellowships from the National Endowment of the Humanities, the American Council of Learned Societies, and the Institute for International Education, Douglas has served as a visiting professor of law at the University of London and at Humboldt Universität, Berlin. His work has appeared in numerous publications, including, The Yale Law Journal, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, The New Yorker, The Times Literary Supplement, and Harper’s.
Fellowship Research
For his Ina Levine Invitational Scholar Fellowship in the Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, Professor Douglas conducted research on his project, “Demjanjuk in Munich.” This book project examines American, German and Israeli responses to the crimes of the Holocaust through the filter of the Demjanjuk case, arguably the longest and most evolved criminal proceeding to address Nazi atrocities. John Demjanjuk, who was tried in Israel in the late-1980s in a famous case of mistaken identity, was convicted in Munich 2011 at the age of 91 for his role as a guard at the Sobibor death camp.
Professor Lawrence Douglas was in residence in the center from January 1 to July 31, 2014.