PHILADELPHIA -- Harry Reicher, a University of Pennsylvania adjunct law professor, will teach "Law and the Holocaust," a course which has been termed a world first. The class will be offered in the spring semester beginning Jan. 17th at the Penn Law School.

"Law and the Holocaust" will be held on Wednesday evenings from 4:50 to 7:50 p.m. Members of the media are invited to attend a class by prior arrangement with Reicher.

Reicher, an Australian expert in the study of international law, was born in Prague. He holds degrees in economics and law from Monash University in Melbourne and graduate degrees from the University of Melbourne and Harvard University. He has taught International Human Rights, the Law of the United Nations and International Law and the Middle East Conflict at law schools in the United States and in Australia.

"Law and the Holocaust" draws together the fields of comparative law and jurisprudence and international law to examine the Nazi philosophy of law in the Third Reich. It studies how this philosophy was used to pervert Germany legal system in order to discriminate against, ostracize, dehumanize and ultimately eliminate certain classes of people. The course also addresses the role of international law in rectifying the damage.

Historians, scholars and legal experts have lauded "Law and the Holocaust" because it fills a void in Holocaust studies. Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel called it "an urgent course for law students who will be our future lawyers and leaders." Holocaust historian Deborah Dwork, professor and director of the Center for Holocaust Studies at Clark University, said Prof. Reicher is "doing extraordinarily important work." And, according to Tono Eitel, former ambassador of the Federal Republic of Germany to the United Nations, the course offers "insights into the pseudo-legal machinery of the Third Reich."

Both graduate and undergraduate students from the United States and abroad are enrolled in "Law and the Holocaust." These students represent a wide range of disciplines including law, history, political science, Jewish studies, sociology and psychology. Students from Penn Wharton School are also enrolled in the course.