Home In-Depth Reporting Book about Jewish lawyers targeted in Nazi… Opening Statements By Liane Jackson November 2018 “Lawyers Without Rights” tells how Jewish lawyers and jurists were degraded and debarred as the Holocaust began. Photo courtesy of Lawyers Without Rights. As Adolf Hitler rose to power in Nazi Germany, the first casualty was the rule of law. The Third Reich’s ensuing purge included systematically targeting “undesirables,” including Jewish lawyers, crippling their ability to practice law. Lawyers Without Rights: The Fate of Jewish Lawyers in Berlin after 1933 by Simone Ladwig-Winters is a chilling portrait, through photos and narratives, of how Jewish lawyers and jurists were degraded and debarred as the Holocaust began. Attorneys were arrested, imprisoned or forced to flee the country. The book has a directory of 1,404 attorneys of Jewish origin during the war. The book, first published in 2007, describes the terrors experienced by Jewish attorneys, including Alfred Apfel, who was arrested and later fled to France after being labeled one of the “traitors to the German people”; Ludwig Barbasch, imprisoned for six months and stripped of his license; and Hans Litten, who spent years in concentration camps until his suicide. Lawyers Without Rights is about remembrance and honoring Jewish lawyers during this time, and it is also a cautionary tale for the world today. To reach a wider audience, the book was translated from German by the American Bar Association this year in partnership with the German Federal Bar. “Too many non-Jewish lawyers in Germany during… [Read full story]
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