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What You Do Matters: Lessons From Holocaust Perpetrators & Peacekeepers In Rwanda
Free! Members of the public welcome
University of St. Thomas
Wednesday, February 11, Noon – 1 PM
McNeely Hall, Room 100 (St. Paul Campus)
Why should people entrusted with using deadly force study the Holocaust and genocide?
Drawing from his research and books on the leadership and ethics of Nazi soldiers and Rwanda peacekeepers, Dr. David Frey will explore decisions made by German officers serving in occupied Soviet lands in 1941 as well as choices made by Major General Roméo Dallaire, who was Force Commander of the United Nations Mission in Rwanda during the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi.
Bio
Dr. David Frey is Professor of History at the US Military Academy at West Point. He earned his Ph.D. in Central European History at Columbia University in 2003, taught there for a year, and then began what is now a 22-year tenure at West Point.
He is the author of Jews, Nazis, and the Cinema of Hungary: The Tragedy of Success, 1929-44 (IB Tauris, 2017), which won the 2019 biennial Hungarian Studies Association Book Award; co-author of Least-Worst Decisions: The Leadership of LGen Roméo Dallaire during the Genocide in Rwanda (forthcoming); and co-author of Ordinary Soldiers: A Study in Law, Ethics and Leadership (USHMM, 2014).
His current research focuses on Jewish refugees who joined the US Army military intelligence during World War II and contributed to reshaping concepts of American citizenship and belonging. In 2020 he won West Point’s highest award for teaching and scholarship, the Phi Kappa Phi National Honor Society Peter L. Zhu Scholastic Achievement Award.
Dr. Frey founded and from 2010-25, directed the Stewart and Lynda Resnick Center for Holocaust & Genocide Studies (RCHGS). Through the Center, he spearheaded efforts to increase Defense Department understanding of, research into, and efforts to mitigate mass atrocity. He has appeared on 60 Minutes, testified in the Senate, and advised multiple government agencies on matters related to mass atrocities, human rights, and more.
In 2018, the US Holocaust Memorial Museum honored him as one of eight international agents of change and in 2023 the Museum named the Resnick Center and other global partners winners of its prestigious Elie Wiesel Award.
