For immediate release: March 15, 2007

BLOOMSBURG — Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania will host a lecture by Holocaust expert Richard Breitman on Tuesday, March 20, from 7 to 8:30 p.m. in the Kehr Union, Ballroom. Breitman, professor of history at American University, will the lecture, "The United States and the Holocaust." The talk, funded by the College of Liberal Arts, is free and open to the public.

Breitman has devoted most of his career to the history of the Holocaust and is an internationally recognized scholar whose has served as research director for the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. His lecture at BU will place U.S. responses to news of the Nazi genocidal policies into the context of immigration policies, the refugee problems of the 1930s, and what the United States knew about the fate of Europe's Jews.

He is the author of a number of books focused on the Holocaust, including: "Official Secrets: What the Nazis Planned, What the British and Americans Knew," "Breaking the Silence: The German Who Exposed the Final Solution" and "The Architect of Genocide: Himmler and the Final Solution."

Bloomsburg University is one of 14 universities in the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education. The university serves approximately 8,000 students, offering comprehensive programs of study in the colleges of Professional Studies, Business, Liberal Arts and Science and Technology.