Noted prosecutor of Nazi war criminals will speak at The Citadel

CHARLESTON, SC – April 12, 2011 – The man who has made it his life mission, in addition to his career, to track down Nazi war criminals will visit The Citadel on Tuesday, April 12.

Eli Rosembaum, director of the Office of Special Investigations at the U.S. Justice Department, will speak at 7 p.m. at the Altman Center, which is in the end zone at Johnson Hagood Stadium at the corner of Hagood Avenue and Fishburne Street. Rosenbaum’s visit is in connection with the Hitler and National Socialism class taught by history professor Gen. Michael Barrett, USA (Ret.), and is sponsored by the Remember Program for Holocaust and Genocide Education of the Charleston Jewish Federation. The lecture is free and open to the public.

A native of New York, Rosenbaum is the longest-serving prosecutor and investigator of Nazi criminals and other perpetrators of human rights violations in world history, having worked on these cases at the U.S. Department of Justice for nearly 25 years. A graduate of the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania (B.S. and MBA, Finance) and of the Harvard Law School, he served from1994 to 2010 as director of the Justice Department’s Office of Special Investigations (OSI), which was created by Attorney General order to investigate and prosecute WWII-era Nazi criminals. He previously served as a trial attorney and then deputy director at OSI and has also worked as a corporate litigator in Manhattan. In March 2010, OSI was merged with another Criminal Division section to form the Human Rights and Special Prosecutions Section (HRPS), and Rosenbaum was named director of Human Rights Enforcement Strategy and Policy in the new unit.

Under Rosenbaum’s leadership, OSI won major awards from Jewish organizations and Holocaust survivor groups, and it has been called the most successful government Nazi-hunting organization on earth (ABC News) and the world’s most aggressive and effective Nazi-hunting operation (The Washington Post).

Rosenbaum’s published works include Betrayal: The Untold Story of the Kurt Waldheim Investigation and Cover-Up, which was selected for Notable Books of 1993 by The New York Times Book Review and Best Books of 1993 by The San Francisco Chronicle.