Page 4 - SeptemberOctober25 Report

President’s Brief
President’s Brief
On History
[A]ny possible future exists on a line from an actual past.
On Freedom by Timothy Snyder
By Alan Abes
Protecting people from hurt feelings they might suffer from exposure to
facts threatens not only how we remember the past, it also endangers how we
resolve disputes, uphold treaties, and live under the rule of law.
Jews in the Garden by Judy Rakowski
We earnestly hope you accept the following invitation.
Beginning in October, Cincinnati Museum Center and the
Nancy & David Wolf Holocaust & Humanity Center located in
Union Terminal will host “Auschwitz. Not long ago. Not far away.”
This traveling exhibition about the largest complex of extermi-
nation, concentration, and forced labor camps in the Holocaust
includes over 500 original artifacts from the Auschwitz-Birkenau
State Museum in Poland and institutions around the world.
Cincinnati is one of a select few North
American host cities. We are incred-
ibly fortunate not only to have CMC
and HHC as institutions of action and
remembrance, but that they partnered to
bring this powerful exhibition here. This
is a rare opportunity to connect with
Auschwitz as part of the larger Holocaust
in which Nazis and local collaborators
and opportunists murdered six million
Jews across Europe, traumatized and
enslaved so many more, and destroyed
communities forever.
The CBA is honored to partner with
HHC to provide a tour of the exhibition
and an accompanying CLE on October
30. See page 15 or visit cincybar.org to
register
Our speaker will be Fred Miller, an
attorney who practiced mainly in Butler County where he was
also a magistrate. Fred’s parents were Dr. Albert and Jane Miller,
both Holocaust survivors. His mother and her family fled Vienna
just before WWII, when she was thirteen. His father grew up in
Berlin during prewar Nazi Germany. Dr. Miller and his family
fled right before the war, at age sixteen. He became a Ritchie Boy,
part of an American military intelligence unit in which native-
speaking German Jews interrogated prisoners and suspected war
criminals. The Millers have been very active with HHC. Fred
speaks and provides tours of the museum. He is eager to share
his father’s story with us.
This event is a special occasion. We hope you will attend on
that basis alone. Few bar associations offer such an opportunity.
But consider also the lessons of history in relation to our
sworn oath to follow the law, respect courts, and act ethically
and professionally. Dr. Miller often said, “The Holocaust didn’t
start with bullets. It started with words.” The Holocaust embodies
corruption; of lawyers and courts, the rule
of just laws, and due process. These condi-
tions built gradually from misinformation
and the degradation of human beings and
their protective institutions. The path is
not hard to follow from incendiary rhet-
oric to consolidation of autocratic power,
merging the justice system with the state,
accepting Jewish isolation and exclusion
as reflected in the Nuremberg Race Laws,
concentration camps for political pris-
oners and undesirables, mob violence,
and, ultimately, systematic extermina-
tion on a brutal scale as exemplified at
Auschwitz.
The objective “actual past” is inescap-
able. How we deal with that past impacts
the law profoundly going forward. That is
why HHC encourages people to stand up
for themselves and others as a hopeful, enduring lesson of the
Holocaust. And that is why the CBA emphasizes public education
to promote understanding of law and courts, community service
and racial justice that value the worth of our entire community,
and respectful interaction. Learning from history is not always
enough to avoid repeating its tragedies, but failing to make the
effort only makes their repeat more likely.
4 THE REPORT | September/October 2025 | CincyBar.org
Alan Abes is a partner at Dinsmore and the 2025-2026 CBA president.