The Robert Salomon Morton
 Memorial Lecture

Born in 1906 in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, Robert Solomon Morton was educated in the School of the Orthodox Synagogue, Kahal Adath Jeshurun. He was not only a witness to, but the personal target of Nazi persecution in the years leading up to the Second World War. A particularly harrowing experience in 1934 convinced him that he had no choice but to apply for emigration to the United States - a process which took three years, but finally resulted in his coming to Boston. For many years he and his wife, Sophie, were caretakers and caterers of the Hillel Foundation at Harvard University.

It was during his time at Hillel that a chance meeting at a barbershop brought Mr. Mortontogether with Bill Giessen, then a postdoctoral fellow at MIT who had grown up and was educated in Germany during and following the Nazi period. The long-time friendship and ongoing conversation that resulted from this meeting helped to foster a sense of discovery between the two men. The annual Morton Lecture has been created as a way of memorializing a personality which embodied a spirit of reconciliation and understanding.

The Robert Salomon Morton Lecture is sponsored by the Gustel Cormann Memorial Fund at Northeastern University

Background Photograph of Watchtower #3 in Trzebnia, a sub-camp of Auschwitz.