WYOMING — Today, Jan. 27 is International Holocaust Remembrance Day. Jan. 27, 1945, was the day that Soviet Troops liberated the Auschwitz-Birkenau Concentration Camp.
Wyoming Senator John Barrasso shared a message on Facebook about International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
The University of Wyoming American Heritage Center also shared two World War II-era collections from Murray C. Bernays and Grace Robinson.
Bernays was an American lawyer who served in the U.S. Army during both World Wars. In 1945 he became a colonel with the U.S. Army General Staff Corps. It was in this role that Bernays helped to develop the legal procedures and framework for the international military tribunal that conducted the Nuremberg War Crime Trials.
Grace Robinson was a reporter for the New York Daily and was in the courtroom in Nuremberg. Robinson was present in court on June 20, 1946, to witness the prosecution of some of the most infamous Nazi leaders, including Hermann Goering, Rudolf Hess, Albert Speer and Ernst Kaltenbrunner.
The University of Wyoming American Heritage Center has collections of personal papers and notes from both Bernay and Robinson.
“In Bernays’ collection, you will find information on the structure of the trials and files pertaining to witnesses and evidence compiled by the prosecutors in advance of the trials. The Robinson papers include a collection of newspaper clippings covering the Nuremberg Trials from various newspapers dated 1945 to 1946,” according to the American Heritage Center.
Visit The American Heritage Center to access the Bernays and Robinson papers. A portion of the Grace Robinson papers are also digitized and available online in Luna.
