Deadly Medicine: Creating the Master Race at Taubman Health Sciences Library

The Taubman Health Sciences Library at the University of Michigan will host the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s traveling exhibition, Deadly Medicine: Creating the Master Race. The exhibition illustrates how Nazi leadership enlisted people in professions traditionally charged with healing and the public good, to legitimize persecution, murder and, ultimately, genocide. Deadly Medicine, which is cosponsored by the University of Michigan’s Center for the History of Medicine, will premiere on February 3, 2012 on the and runs through April 13, 2012.

“Deadly Medicine explores the Holocaust’s roots in then-contemporary scientific and pseudo-scientific thought,” explains exhibition curator Susan Bachrach. “At the same time, it touches on complex ethical issues we face today, such as how societies acquire and use scientific knowledge and how they balance the rights of the individual with the needs of the larger community.”Deadly Medicine is based on the acclaimed exhibition of the same name that opened at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., in April 2004. An online version is viewable at www.ushmm.org/deadlymedicine.

The Nazi regime was founded upon the conviction that “inferior races” and individuals had to be eliminated from German society so that the fittest “Aryans” could thrive. By the end of World War II, six million Jews and millions of others—among them Roma and Sinti (Gypsies), people diagnosed as hereditarily ill, homosexuals, and others belonging to ethnic groups deemed inferior—had been persecuted and murdered. Join us as we explore this dark chapter in history and its legacy on the health profession today

Events that complement the exhibit include:
Opening Reception: Thursday, February 9, 5:30-6:30pm, Taubman Health Sciences Library – 4th Floor

Keynote Address, “The Legacy of American Eugenics: Buck v. Bell in the Supreme Court”: With Paul A. Lombardo, Professor of Law at Georgia State University, Thursday, February 9, 6:45-8:00pm, A. Alfred Taubman Biomedical Research Science Building, Kahn Auditorium
Panel Discussion: Reflections: Thursday, March 29, 3:00-5:00pm, A. Alfred Taubman Biomedical Research Science Building