Weisberg confronts the role of lawyers in Holocaust
Katrina Homel | Monday, November 14, 2011 
Visiting Professor Richard Weisberg’s research on Vichy law earned him the French Legion of Honor in 2009. Weisberg taught his seminar, “European Legal Systems and the Holocaust,” at Georgetown Law this semester.As a student at Columbia Law School, Professor Richard Weisberg made an unusual observation in the law library.
“I was surprised to find that the French law books continued uninterrupted throughout World War II,” he said. “The only substantial change was a new category next to trusts and estates, criminal law, etc. – Juif, or Jews.”
Weisberg, a visiting professor from Cardozo School of Law, cites this discovery in the preface of his book, “Vichy Law and the Holocaust in France” (NYU Press, 1996), as a key influence that shaped the direction of his research on the role of lawyers in Hitler’s Third Reich.