Marian Blank Horn, a judge on the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, recalled how then U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Sandra Day O’Connor addressed her father, former Berlin judge Werner Blank, as “judge” at Horn’s swearing ceremony in 1986. Horn was appointed by President Ronald Reagan and confirmed by the U.S. Senate as a judge in 1986 and re-appointed in 2003. Her father served as a judge in Berlin and was removed from the bench during the Nazi era because he was Jewish.

Robert “Bob” Gross told of how his step-grandfather Erich Maier, once a law partner with his grandfather who also practiced law in Austria but died at an early age, lost his law license in Vienna after the Nazis took control. Gross is a trial lawyer with the U.S. Department of Justice.

Phillip Carter recounted how his grandfather Bruno Cohn (later Bruce Carter) took a circuitous route to the Los Angeles area and worked as a hat-maker, among other jobs, to provide for his family. Carter is senior fellow, counsel and director of the Military, Veterans, and Society Program at the Center for a New American Security. His grandfather was a lawyer in Luckenwalde, Germany, and is one of the lawyers featured in the Lawyers Without Rights exhibit.

Michael Stein, an intellectual property attorney, discussed his German ancestry with mixed feelings. The promising law career of his grandfather Harry Stein was cut short for no reason other than being Jewish. His grandfather served as a clerk for a Berlin judge in 1932-33, when he was fired by the Nazi government.