Nazi Germany & The Holocaust

A Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities’

Summer Teachers Institute

Summer Semester 2008	Office: 215 Brown Hall
Dr. Christopher Blackburn, Instructor	Hours: 12-1 (M-Th)
Office Phone: 342-1550	(or by appointment)
E-mail: blackburn@ulm.edu	Web page: http://www.ulm.edu/~blackburn

Scope of the Course:

This course will confront the background, events, and consequences of the extermination of European Jews during World War II. Students will be introduced to traditions of European racism and anti-Semitism, as well as the cultural, political, diplomatic, and social conditions in Germany and elsewhere that helped to make the Holocaust possible. We will then turn to a study of the rise of National Socialism, its vision for a new Europe, and the role of anti-Semitism in Nazi ideology and practice, culminating in an analysis of both the politics and the machinery of genocide. Finally, we will address issues of resistance, aid to the victims and, ultimately, the ways in which our culture and others remember, commemorate, or even forget the Holocaust.

Textbooks:

Rita Botwinick, A History of the Holocaust (3^rd Edition)

Richard Chardkoff, Sol’s Story.

Art Spiegelman, Maus: A Survivor’s Tale II (And Here My Troubles Began).

Elie Wiesel, Night.

Schedule of Lectures, Readings, and Assignments

2 June	How & Why Should We Study the Holocaust? Guest Speaker: Dr. Gordon Harvey
3 June	Some Aspects of Jewish History & The Emergence of Modern Anti-Semitism Reading: The Development of Modern Anti-Semitism (on-line). Guest Speaker: Dr. Gordon Harvey
4 June	The Collapse of Democracy & the Rise of National Socialist Germany Reading: Program of the National Socialist German Workers' Party & Selections from: Julius Streicher (on-line).
5 June	Nazi Purification Policy, 1933-1939 Reading: Kristallnacht Order (on-line). Film: The Architecture of Doom
9 June	The Völkisch State Book Discussion: Night
10 June	Poles and Jews Before the War Film: Shoah
11 June	The German Invasion and Occupation of Poland Reading: Address by Adolf Hitler - September 1, 1939 (on-line).
12 June	Jews and Gentiles in Occupied Poland Reading: Govenor General Hans Frank’s Speech from Krakow, 1941, Emanuel Ringelblum's Description of Warsaw Ghetto and Shtetl Transcript (on-line).
16 June	Einsatzgruppen, T-4 and the Wannsee Conference Reading: The Wannsee Protocol & The Jager Report (on-line). Book Discussion: Maus II
17 June	Deportation for the Final Solution Film: Shoah
18 June	Auschwitz and Majdanek as Case Studies Reading: Night and Fog Decree (on-line). Film: Night and Fog
19 June	Perpetrators, Victims, and Bystanders
23 June	Book Discussion: Sol’s Story Guest Speaker: Dr. Richard Chardkoff
24 June-26 June	Classroom Presentations of Modules/Lesson Plans