Please join us as we honor Dr. Charles W. Sydnor, Jr., our Executive Director, Emeritus, with the Rule of Law award for his distinguished service to the Virginia Holocaust Museum and his years of service to world Jewry in bringing Nazi War Criminals to justice.
Dr. Charlie W. Sydnor, Jr. is a highly respected historian of the Holocaust and World War II. He provided the United States Department of Justice and its Office of Special Investigations with expert testimony in twenty-one court cases involving former SS concentration camp guards and Nazi death camp collaborators. Most notably, in the case of Ukrainian guard John Demjanjuk, who was found guilty of being an accessory to the murder of 28,060 Jews at the Sobibór extermination camp. Dr. Sydnor has also served as the Virginia Holocaust Museum’s Executive Director from 2013-2015, and is still on staff as their Senior Historian.
One of the central lessons of the Holocaust focuses on the centrality of the Rule of Law in the creation and maintenance of civil societies. To safeguard that belief, the Nuremberg Courtroom Committee of the Virginia Holocaust Museum in tandem with the Virginia Law Foundation established an annual program to honor individuals whose life and work emulate the highest ideals enshrined in the principals that established the Nuremberg Military Tribunal (1945–46) and later the International Court of Justice.
Ceremony to start at 5:30pm at the Virginia Holocaust Museum which is located at 2000 East Cary Street, Richmond, VA 23223
Rule of Law Day
- April 24, 2024
- 9:30 pm - 10:30 pm
- The Choral Synagogue Auditorium
The Choral Synagogue Auditorium
Labeled one of the most beautiful synagogues in the Jewish world on the eve of the Holocaust, the Chore Shul (Yiddish for Choral Synagogue) of Kovno certainly was a gem of synagogue architecture. Dedicated in 1871, its name “chore” places the synagogue as a superb example of the large “choral synagogue” tradition of the second half of the nineteenth century in Central and Eastern Europe, especially in the Russian Empire.
Jay Ipson, Museum co-founder, Holocaust survivor and Kovno native, opted to copy this architectural treasure in order to offer visitors some idea of the rich Jewish religous and cultural heritage that had existed before the Holocaust. Working with Marc Cohen and Trademark Woodworking, the original building’s plan moved from idea to actuality and now serves as the Museum’s auditorium.
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