Dr. Charles W. Sydnor Jr., a nationally recognized expert on the Holocaust who is executive director of the Virginia Holocaust Museum, will speak Thursday, Feb. 27, at 7 p.m. in Longwood University’s Wygal Auditorium.
Sydnor will speak on "The Virginia Holocaust Museum: Teaching the Nazi Genocide as Local History." As an expert witness for the U.S. Department of Justice from 1981-2006, he helped revoke the citizenship of 23 Nazi war criminals who had been living in the United States. He is the author of Soldiers of Destruction: The SS Death’s Head Division, 1933-1945 and currently is writing a biography of Nazi official Reinhard Heydrich.
The Virginia Holocaust Museum is in Richmond and was founded in 1997. Sydnor joined the staff in July 2013.
Sydnor, a former member of Longwood’s history faculty (1972-80), was president of Commonwealth Public Broadcasting from 1992-2006 and president of Emory & Henry College, his alma mater, from 1984-92. He also has served as a speechwriter for Gov. Charles Robb (1982-84) and assistant to the president of Hampden-Sydney College (1980-82). He has master’s and doctoral degrees from Vanderbilt University.
Sydnor is the second speaker in the Longwood Leadership Forum, which began in January. The series highlights outstanding examples of leadership in the arts, education, literature, sciences, technology and philanthropy.
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