Departments News & Features Arts Sports Research Briefs In the News Health Matters BU Yesterday Contact Us

Week of 20 March 1998 Vol. I, No. 24 Feature Article Nazi-hunter Neal Sher to deliver the Kahn lecture Neal Sher, once known as America's chief Nazi hunter, will give this year's Albert S. Kahn Memorial Lecture on Monday, March 30. The event is hosted annually by the Center for Judaic Studies at Boston University. Sher, who will speak on The Jewish Factor in American Politics, served as the director of the Office of Special Investigations (OSI) in the U.S. Department of Justice from 1983 to 1994. He led government efforts to identify, investigate, and bring to justice Nazi war criminals living illegally in the United States. A former executive director of the American Israel Political Action Committee, Sher now lives in Washington, D.C., where he practices law. He is currently working on a book about his experiences in the OSI. Neal Sher After joining the OSI as a senior trial attorney in 1979, Sher initiated and coordinated a massive effort to uncover suspected Nazi criminals, achieving many noteworthy successes. These included leading the multinational effort to trace Josef Mengele and preparing the definitive report establishing that he had drowned in Brazil in 1976; leading the investigation of Kurt Waldheim's hidden Nazi past, ensuring that the Austrian president was placed on the Watchlist of persons ineligible to enter the United States; and effectuating the deportation of dozens of Nazis, including Treblinka death camp guard Fedor Fedornko and rocket scientist Arthur Rodolph. At the lecture, Sher's respondent will be Jonathan Sarna, the Joseph H. and Belle R. Braun Professor of American Jewish History at Brandeis University and author of several books, including The American Jewish Experience and The Jews of Boston. The event, which will be moderated by the director of the Center for Judaic Studies, Steven Katz, will take place in the auditorium of the School of Management, 595 Commonwealth Ave., at 7 p.m. A reception and refreshments will follow in the SMG atrium. The lecture is free and open to the public. Professor Albert Kahn (1911-1984) was a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School. While pursuing a successful business career, he turned his attention to the challenges of education. After he completed his doctorate in philosophy and history at Boston University, he was invited to join the faculty of the University's School of Education, where he served for almost two decades, winning praise for his creative and imaginative teaching.