-------- Original message --------
From: Susan Turriziani
Date:03/17/2015 4:37 PM (GMT-05:00)
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Dissertation Announcement - Rebecca Erbelding


To: The George Mason University Community

The College of Humanities and Social Sciences is pleased to announce the following dissertation defense:

Rebecca Erbelding
History
Major Professor: Dr. Marion F. Deshmukh

About Time: The History of the War Refugee Board

Friday, April 24, 2015
10:30 AM - 01:30 PM
George Mason University, Fairfax Campus
Robinson Hall B, Room 333

President Franklin D. Roosevelt created the War Refugee Board (WRB) in January 1944 to formulate and effectuate plans for the relief and rescue of Jews and other persecuted minorities from the threat of Nazi atrocities (what we now know as the Holocaust). This dissertation is a chronological narrative history of the WRB and, by relying on primary source documentation, presents the agency's work within the context of World War II and of the information and possibilities known to the WRB staff, most of whom were Treasury Department lawyers with little experience with relief work. As the War Refugee Board was the official response of the United States to Nazi genocide, this dissertation is meant to provide a reference work on the agency and to complicate overly simplistic assumptions on the topic of America and the Holocaust.

Copies of the dissertation are on reserve in the Johnson Center Library. The doctoral project will not be read at the meeting, but should be read in advance.

All members of the George Mason University community are invited to attend.