On September 23, our Cardozo Society will be partnering with the North Carolina Conference of District Attorneys on the lunchtime talk, “Threats to Justice: Lessons from the Holocaust.” The presentation, sponsored in part by PBS North Carolina, focuses on “What You Do Matters: Lessons from the Holocaust,” a training program where law enforcement agencies learn about the role of law enforcement in Nazi Germany. We talked with Cardozo Chair Frank Kirshbaum and Wake County District Attorney Lorrin Freeman to learn more.

Q: Who are you and what do you do in the legal profession?

Wake County District Attorney Lorrin Freeman

Frank: I am an attorney practicing in Raleigh and have been practicing for about 25 years. I primarily practice in the area of healthcare law. I am the chair of the Cardozo Society for the Jewish Federation of Raleigh-Cary and I’m organizing this lecture series on threats to justice.

Lorrin: I have also practiced law for almost 25 years, eight years as an elected District Attorney. I’m a member of the executive committee for NC District attorneys and that’s how I became involved in this program.

Q: Can you give a brief summary of what the talk will be about?

Lorrin: The focus of this presentation is to show how the North Carolina Conference of District Attorneys is using the history of the Holocaust as context in which to teach prosecutors and law enforcement about the role of law and moral and ethical decisions they have to make when they are trying to keep our community safe. The program is called “What You Do Matters: Lessons from the Holocaust.” We have a couple of trainers who used this to train people, and they will be speaking at the talk.

Frank: This series is looking at our laws and the rules we live by, as well as how those laws and rules are applied and enforced. That’s all we have to guide us, the rule of law. We had Prof. Gerhardt speak at the first presentation about what happens when the rule of law is not followed. This presentation addresses what happens when the rule of law is changed in a way that, while the law may be followed and enforced, that law is not fair, equitable, and morally just.

Lorrin: The program challenges people to think about how people who were sworn to protect their community and maintain peace were used to assist in horrific acts. How can we evaluate the decisions we make on a daily basis to ensure we are true to ethical and moral values? This program adheres to the historical reality specifically of the Holocaust. It starts in the early 1930’s and the various events in the change of the laws within Germany during the rise of the Third Reich.

Q: What inspired you to speak about this topic?

Frank: Current events were what drove me to organize this series. Given what we are currently seeing on a national and state level, we are now experiencing some of the same things that have happened historically and that we thought weren’t possible in this country.

Lorrin: I had the benefit of going through this training several years ago, and I was able to observe first-hand the epiphany that others involved in the training reached when they recognized this kind of slow march towards laws that obviously were horrific, anti-humanitarian—that people who had the same roles as they do in their communities had been involved in carrying out these atrocious acts. Recognition of the serious moral and ethical responsibilities that each of us has, irrespective of what the current law may be asking people to do. What is the appropriate role of law enforcement and prosecution in our communities? Unfortunately, that discussion often invokes a certain amount of defensiveness and it’s hard to get people to do that examination. When you use the Holocaust as historical context, people see that as the most horrific period in human history, at least recently. People were able to let their guard down and ask themselves these tough questions after looking at the historical context. I found it to be an incredibly effective training. It was a dialogue and self-examination. I’ve been committed to bringing this training program to North Carolina. Arizona started the program 10 years ago and they have trained thousands of law enforcement officers.

Q: What trends do you observe with this? Have there been changes in the training program with news developments?

Lorrin: The materials are done in connection with the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, so the content of the program has not changed. Part of what you are witnessing is the NC District Attorneys increasing their commitment to give this opportunity to law enforcement where they can do deep soul searching about the values they are following when it comes to interacting with their communities. We want to use this program as a catalyst to ensure that these conversations are happening across the state, especially in light of increasing distrust of law enforcement and prosecutors.

Frank: The What You Do Matters program is careful not to alienate the people who are participating in the training. The program is less about what is happening right now, and more about giving people a view as to what happened historically. I don’t think the program would change based on what happens day-to-day, because it’s designed to make you think about whatever you might be experiencing today, using a historical context. These are difficult questions because not everybody’s view of what is “just” is the same. What is being rights are being protected and what laws are being enforced? There’s a line somewhere that falls between carrying out what the law says and what is actually just.

Lorrin: The training is done specifically involving law enforcement and prosecutors as the trainers. It’s presented in a way where people are willing to be open and receiving it. They put themselves in these situations and think through these dilemmas. The oath of law enforcement in Germany in the 1930’s wasn’t that different from the oath today. What happened? Where was “the point of no return?” What should they have done differently?

Q: What do you want people to understand about this talk?

Frank: From my perspective, I want to make sure that people understand that things were not that different in Germany prior to the rise of the Third Reich than they are right now in the US. For them to compare currently unfolding events to that history so that they can help support efforts to prevent us from ending up where Germany ended up during that time.

Lorrin: My longtime chief assistant prosecutor went to this training and said it was the most impactful training of his career. This program, I think, has the ability to move the needle to get the law enforcement to ask hard questions about how they act in our community and protect all of us, even in the face of incredibly challenging times.

To register for Threats to Justice: Lessons from the Holocaust, CLICK HERE.

This program is sponsored in part by PBS North Carolina.

Lessons from the Holocaust: An Interview