LAWRENCEVILLE, NJ -- The Julius and Dorothy Koppelman Holocaust/Genocide Resource Center at Rider University has invited Dr. Margaret Schleissner to speak at its annual Kristallnacht program on November 7 at 7:30 p.m. The topic of the presentation will be "Children of the Shoah: Jewish Life in Germany Today" and will be held in the Center's facility in Gill Memorial Chapel on the Lawrenceville campus.

Dr. Schleissner, a Rocky Hill resident, is an associate professor of foreign languages and literatures at Rider and has taught German at the University since 1985. She received her M.A. and Ph.D. in Germanic Languages and Literatures from Princeton University, during which she studied in both Germany and France. Last summer, Dr. Schleissner attended a Fulbright Summer Institute in Germany which investigated "Germany and Jewish Studies Today," which focused on issues pertaining to the Holocaust and Jewish life in present day Germany.

The Kristallnacht program at Rider commemorates the night of November 9, 1938, when Nazi SS incited mobs to attack Jewish citizens in Germany and Austria and to destroy synagogues and Jewish-owned businesses and property. Many regard this as the turning point in the Nazi persecution -- their first systematic act in the genocidal process against Jews.

The program is free and open to the public. For more information, call the Center at (609) 896-5345.

Rider University's Lawrenceville campus is located five miles south of Princeton and three miles north of Trenton on Route 206 in Lawrence Township. The campus is one-half mile south of exit 7A of Interstate 95.