HISTORY 333
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Course Syllabus
Link to top Holocaust page

HISTORY 333
(JNE 3331 and Re St 385)
The Holocaust

Prof. Hillel J. Kieval
Fall 2001

Office: Busch 106
Office Hours: Mon and Tues, 2:30-3:30
935-5461
email: hkieval@artsci.wustl.edu

T.A.’s: Chris Pepus cpepus@artsci.wustl.edu and Jill Wooten jawooten@artsci.wustl.edu

Description

This course has the difficult task of examining the origins, causes, and significance of the genocide of European Jewry. Working from the contexts of both European and Jewish history—and built around lectures, readings, discussion, and film—the course will raise questions about causality and motivation in history; the roles of ideology and contingency in human affairs; collective and individual experience in extreme situations; the behavior of both bystanders and perpetrators; and the relationship between history and memory.

Course Requirements

  1. Attendance at all lectures and section meetings, including the Holocaust Memorial Lecture on Nov. 7 (11 a.m., Graham Chapel).
  2. You are also strongly encouraged to participate in class discussions, whether these occur during lectures or section meetings. In order for this to happen, you will need to complete all reading assignments on time, that is, in advance of that week's section or that day’s lecture.
  3. There will be a one-hour, in-class mid-term examination on October 15 and a two-hour, in-class final on December 10 (10:30 am to 12:30 pm). Please do not make any travel plans for these dates, as I will not be able to accommodate special requests.
  4. The final requirement will take the form of two short essays (4-5 pages in length). These are "document papers," if you will, whose purpose is to analyze one or more primary sources through a combination of contextualization and interpretation. Guidelines and suggestions for the essays will be distributed and reviewed in sections. Due dates for the papers are: [1] Sept. 28 and [2] Nov. 9.
  5. Final grades will be based roughly on the following formula: Participation: 10%; Mid-term: 20%; Essays: 40%; Final exam: 30%.

 

Required Textbooks

The following, required texts, are available for purchase at the Washington University bookstore and many commercial internet sites. They will also be placed on reserve at Olin Library together with other works.

Leni Yahil. The Holocaust: The Fate of European Jewry, 1932-1945. Oxford University Press.

Saul Friedlander. Nazi Germany and the Jews. Vol. 1: The Years of Persecution, 1933-1939. HarperCollins.

Yitzhak Arad, et al., eds., Documents on the Holocaust. University of Nebraska Press.

Jan T. Gross. Neighbors: The Destruction of the Jewish Community in Jedwabne. Princeton University Press.

Primo Levi. Survival in Auschwitz. Simon & Schuster.

Michael C. Steinlauf. Bondage to the Dead: Poland and the Memory of the Holocaust. Syracuse University Press.

Peter Novick. The Holocaust in American Life. Houghton Mifflin.

Calendar and Syllabus*

* Please note that titles and dates of films, and portions of films, will be announced over the course of the semester.

Aug. 22: Introduction.

Themes of the course. Why study the Holocaust?

Aug. 27: The Nineteenth Century Legacy: Liberalism, Emancipation, Antisemitism.

Why, and from whose perspective, is there a "Jewish question" at the end of
the nineteenth century?

Aug. 29: Twentieth Century Developments: First World War, Russian Revolution, Fascism.

The fate of European liberalism. German National Socialism and world politics.

Aug. 31: Sections.

Reading, Aug 27-31:

*P. Birnbaum and I. Katznelson, "Emancipation and the Liberal Offer."

*P. Preston, "The Great Civil War: European Politics, 1914-1945."

Yahil, The Holocaust, pp. 15-33.

Documents on the Holocaust, pp. 15-30.

[* = photocopies; available in History Dept. Office, Busch 118]

Sept. 3: Labor Day: no class.

Sept. 5: The Jews of Poland and Eastern Europe.

Who are the people who will, in the end, become the principal victims of the Nazi genocide?

Sept. 7: No sections this week.

Reading, Sept. 3-7:

Steinlauf, Bondage to the Dead, pp. 1-22.

Sept. 10: Antisemitism in German History and in Nazi Ideology.

How important is "antisemitism" in explaining the phenomenon of nazism?

Sept. 12: The Nazi Dictatorship: From the Seizure of Power to the Nuremberg Laws.

State power, terror, and everyday life.

Sept. 14: Sections.

Reading, Sept. 10-14:

Friedlander, Nazi Germany and the Jews, pp. 9-173.
Documents on the Holocaust, pp. 37-47, 71-88.

Sept. 17:From the Nuremberg Laws to Kristallnacht.

Again, state power, terror, and everyday life. Does the German state elaborate a clear policy with regard to Jews?

Sept. 19: Rosh Hashanah: no class.

Sept. 21: Sections.

Reading, Sept. 17-21:

Friedlander, pp. 177-305.

Documents, pp. 102-121.

Sept. 24: Roma, homosexuals, and the "hereditarily ill."

Did the Nazis view and treat Gypsies and homosexuals in the same ways that they did Jews? What was the relationship between the euthanasia program and the "final solution" to the "Jewish problem"?

Sept. 26: War and Occupation: The Invasion of Poland.

The implications of war and military occupation for Jewish life in Poland.

Sept. 28: Sections.

Reading, Sept. 24-28:

*Burleigh and Wippermann, The Racial State, pp. 113-197.

Yahil, The Holocaust, pp. 114-145.

Friedlander, pp. 306-333.

Oct. 1: War and Occupation: Life and Death in the Polish Ghettos.

War and the application of racial policy.

Oct. 3: War and Genocide: The Invasion of the Soviet Union.

In what ways did the German invasion of Soviet territory indicate an important shift in actions toward civilian populations?

Oct. 5: Sections.

Reading, Oct. 1-5:

Yahil, pp. 146-224.

Steinlauf, Bondage to the Dead, pp. 23-42.

Documents, pp. 132-135; 173-182; 187-205; 222-232; 235-238.

Oct. 8: War and Genocide: Einsatzgruppen Massacres and Ghettos.

The first stage in the carrying out of mass killings.

Oct. 10: War and Genocide: Extermination Camps.

The second stage in a program of genocide.

Oct. 12: Fall Break. No sections.

Reading, Oct. 8-12:

Yahil, pp. 253-335, 356-403.

Oct. 15: Mid-term Exam.

Oct. 17: Of Bystanders and Participants: The Case of Jedwabne.

What occurred in the Polish town of Jedwabne on July 10, 1941? How does this event affect Polish understandings of the war?

Oct. 19: Sections.

Reading, Oct. 15-19:

Jan Gros, Neighbors, pp. 3-131.

Oct. 22: Of Bystanders and Participants: "Ordinary" or "Extraordinary" Germans?

Historical debates on the role of civilians and "ordinary Germans" in the Nazi genocide.

Oct. 24: Possibilities and Limits of Resistance: The Ghettos.

What constitutes "resistance" on the part of the Jews? What were the limits and possibilities of such behavior?

Oct. 26,: Sections.

Readings, Oct. 22-26:

Gros, Neighbors, pp. 132-173.

Yahil, pp. 457-483.

Oct. 29: Possibilities and Limits of Resistance: The Ghettos. II.

Case studies: Vilna and Warsaw.

Oct. 31: Possibilties and Limits of Resistance: The Camps.

Resistance in concentration and/or death camps? Under what circumstances?

Nov. 2: Sections.

Readings, Oct. 29-Nov. 2:

Yahil, pp. 483-498.

Documents, pp. 292-328, 433-460.

Nov. 5: The Politics of Rescue: Governments, Partisan Movements, Individuals.

The exceptional cases of Denmark and Bulgaria. Partisan and resistance movements in Eastern and Western Europe.

Nov. 7: James E. Young, "A Holocaust Memorial for Berlin?" Holocaust Memorial Lecture. Graham Chapel 11:00 am. Afternoon discussion.

Nov. 9: Sections.

Readings, Nov. 5-9:

Yahil, pp. 543-652.

Nov. 12: The Holocaust Memoir: Trauma, Memory, and Representation.

What issues does Primo Levi focus on? What questions does he raise? And what, if any, answers does he provide?

Nov. 14: The Holocaust in Jewish Memory.

The incorporation of the Holocaust experience into the arts, public ritual, and theology.

Nov. 16: Sections.

Readings, Nov. 12-16:

Primo Levi, Survival in Auschwitz.

Nov. 19: The Holocaust in Polish Memory.

Even before the furor over Jedwabne, Polish understandings of the Holocaust have been tortured and conflicted.

Nov. 21: Thanksgiving. No class.

Nov. 23: Thanksgiving. No sections.

Reading, Nov. 19-23:

Steinlauf, pp. 43-121.

Nov. 26: A Conflict of Memories?

Not only over the Holocaust, narrowly defined, but over the meaning of Jewish history in Europe and Poland.

Nov. 28: American Responses to the Holocaust: World War II and After.

Peter Novick’s look at both the U.S. government and the American Jewish community during and after the war.

Nov. 30,: Sections.

Reading, Nov. 26-30:

Steinlauf, pp. 122-144.

M. Novick, The Holocaust in American Life, pp. 19-145.

Dec.3: The Uses of the Holocaust in American Culture.

Novick’s critique of American Jewish culture.

Reading:

Novick, pp. 146-238, 267-281.
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