May 25, 2016–

Rule of Law Award Ceremony

On May 23rd the VHM and the Virginia Law Foundation honored Dr. Charles Sydnor with the Rule of Law award for his years of service in bringing Nazi War Criminals to justice.

For 25 years, from 1981 - 2006, Dr. Sydnor served as an Expert Witness for the Office of Special Investigations in the United States Department of Justice, testifying to revoke the citizenship and deport former SS concentration camp guards and other Nazi War Criminals who had gained entry to the United States fraudulently and illegally after the Second World War.

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.