Dr. Brian Crim, history department chair and John Franklin East Distinguished Chair in the Humanities at the University of Lynchburg, will present a lecture on Wednesday, April 23, at Jones Memorial Library, a history and genealogy library located at 2311 Memorial Ave. in Lynchburg.
The event, which begins at 7 p.m., is sponsored by the Holocaust Education Foundation of Central Virginia. Admission is free.
Crim’s lecture, “Return to the Reich: German Jewish Emigres and the Holocaust, 1945-1949,” concerns the “Ritchie Boys,” German Jewish refugees who returned to their homeland during World War II to take on the Nazis.
“It’s based on my research and details the experience of German and Austrian Jewish refugees who enlisted in the U.S. military and fought their way across Europe,” Crim, a holocaust scholar and author, said.
“Most were trained at Camp Ritchie near Hagerstown, Maryland, to be intelligence collectors, interrogators, and psychological warfare specialists. The U.S. Army needed the Ritchie Boys because they had intimate knowledge about the ‘German Mind.’
“I wanted to know how these emigres handled the emotions of returning to a country that despised them, murdered their families, and forced them to flee their homes. How do you calmly interrogate a Nazi when you are a Jew?”
While the story might remind some people of Quentin Tarantino’s 2009 film, “Inglourious Basterds,” the real-life Ritchie Boys were looking for intelligence, not vengeance. “The Ritchie Boys … showed tremendous restraint and professionalism when dealing with their enemies,” Crim said. “The U.S. military wanted information, not revenge.”
Crim’s research grew out of a July 2024 seminar, “The U.S. Military and the Holocaust,” held at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. There, Crim researched oral histories, personal letters, and intelligence reports related to the Ritchie Boys and their mission.
“Ten scholars were invited to work in the museum’s archives to write a chapter for a book that will be published by Texas A&M University Press about topics like the Ritchie Boys, the liberation of concentration camps, American POWs in Germany, and the occupation of Germany,” Crim said.
For more information about the lecture, email Crim at [email protected].
