FHSU University Communications
The Departments of History and Political Science and the Forsyth Library at Fort Hays State University hosted the 2025 Joseph and Rebecca Meyerhoff Annual Lecture in Malloy 115 of Palmer Hall on Thursday, April 3. The focus of this year’s lecture was on the driving ideologies and human impact of the territorial expansion efforts of Nazi Germany during World War Two and the United States during the 19th and 20th centuries.
The panel discussion was moderated by Dr. Wendy Rohleder-Sook, chair of FHSU’s Department of Communication Studies, Law, and Political Science. Joining Dr. Rohleder-Sook on the panel were Associate Professor of History and Director of the Institute of American Indian Studies at the University of South Dakota, Dr. Elise Boxer, and Dr. Edward B. Westermann, the Regents Professor of History at Texas A&M-San Antonio.
The panelists shared their analysis of the parallels between the Nazis’ efforts to expand the “Lebensraum” or living space for Germans across conquered Europe and the United States’ actions to forcibly remove Indigenous peoples to accommodate the westward expansion of the nation.
The Nazi dictatorship excluded individuals from the Reich they deemed unworthy of being citizens because they did not fit into the visions of an ideal racial “national community.” A critical component of the Nazi effort was the need to deal with what they called “The Jewish Problem.” Under Nazi rule, Jews were considered “undesirables,” and as such, they were displaced into urban ghettos with poor living conditions, and ultimately millions were sent to concentration camps for extermination.
In the 19th and 20th centuries, the U.S. expanded its borders westward to free up land for its growing population. Some Americans perceived Indigenous peoples as incompatible with national and racial ideas. Like the Jews of Europe, the Indigenous people living in lands claimed by the U.S. were considered “others,” worthy of forced assimilation or relocation to isolated and remote reservations.
While the context behind these two histories differs, the scholars spoke about some connections between the two movements.
“The fundamental lesson is looking at the human experience of different groups and how they were affected by two national projects,” Westermann said. “We’re thinking about the ways we can consider the experiences of groups and incorporate how similarities help us understand history, but also how differences help us understand the human experience.”
Westermann said he believes the lessons of these histories apply to similar conflicts we are witnessing across the globe today.
“Anytime we look for somebody who’s the enemy, that leads us down a slippery slope where now we’re looking to find scapegoats,” Westermann said. “If we start looking to ostracize or marginalize groups of people, that can ultimately lead to the kinds of things we experienced in the Holocaust, including political violence, which means mass violence against these groups.”
Westermann hopes that, through lectures like these, people can apply the lessons of history to address groups and avoid issues like violence. “We need to think about how history can help us negotiate our own lives in a manner that gives people their dignity and justice,” he said. Boxer acknowledged that some progress has been made in addressing the persecution of tribal nations.
“It depends on what we mean by progress,” Boxer said. “I would say progress is made, and the United States still holds to treaties today, and it recognizes tribal nations as what they would term dependent domestic nations.”
Boxer stressed that work still must be done to fully address the past violence committed against Indigenous people.
“In terms of general understanding, I think there’s a sentiment that Indigenous people maybe still have not progressed enough,” she said. “There’s still an idea that Indigenous people should still assimilate [into American culture]. From an Indigenous perspective, I think what’s important is that progress has been made in the reclamation of language, culture, and identity as indigenous peoples.”
Dr. Amber Nickell, assistant professor of history at Fort Hays, who led the effort to bring the 2025 Meyerhoff Annual Lecture to FHSU, wants people to consider this information as a way of not repeating history.
“The biggest thing is to look at how different instances of historical oppression can help us think about other instances and prevent future atrocities,” Nickell said. “There’s this famous quote by Mark Twain that history never repeats itself, but it rhymes. So, one thing we can learn is that no two historical events are exactly the same, but we see these rhyming patterns that can help us inform the way we behave in the world.”
She stressed the fact that silence was a factor in the genocides that came with territorial expansion in both contexts and that many were complacent in the removal of people based on judgment.
“A majority of society was on board with murder and mass atrocity,” Nickell said. “A lot of people didn’t speak out and push back, which is why we have catastrophic losses in both the cases of Indigenous removal and the Holocaust.”
For more information about the Meyerhoff Annual Lecture and its sponsor, the Jack, Joseph, and Morton Mandel Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., go to https://www.ushmm.org/.