Wilson and Associates, PLLC and the Wilson History and Research Center in Little Rock, Arkansas will open “Law in a Land Without Justice: Nazi Germany 1933-1945” with a press conference in the University of Arkansas at Little Rock William H. Bowen School of Law library at 10 a.m. OCT 6th. The event will feature a question-and-answer session with Dan Roberts, Wilson Center Director of History and Research, and Robert White, Curator.

The exhibit is on loan to the UALR Bowen School of Law through July 31, 2010. It focuses on the destruction of justice in Nazi Germany by examining the ways members of the Nazi state used legality to justify tyranny, theft, and murder. Included in the exhibit are artifacts from the World War II era, including a German judge’s robe and cap and headgear from American soldiers who oversaw the Nuremberg Trials in 1946-1948. Also present are pieces from the personal collection of William H. Bowen, former UALR Bowen School Dean and World War II pilot.

From 1933 to 1945, the Nazi regime in Germany instituted a violent dictatorship, which stressed and eventually destroyed any semblance of justice. Malicious and arbitrary laws served to advance the Nazi agenda of militarism, subservience to genocidal authority, and organized theft. Random arrests and show trials invoked terror for those who might have resisted and the court sanctioned thousands of murders of innocent Germans and other European citizens. All the while prosecutors, attorneys and judges continued to function in the midst of Hitler’s ever changing legal code. While few resisted the tyranny of Nazi laws, many in the legal profession welcomed Nazism incursion. They accepted their growing power and the benefits that came with it at the expense of reason, innocent defendants, and justice.

The exhibit can be viewed during regular library hours. The library is open from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. Monday through Thursday, from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. Friday, from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday, and from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. Sunday.