History of the Holocaust (3 cr)
Mark Roseman
JSTU-J 323 / HIST-B 323
TR 11:15-12:05 (RH 100)
Discussions: R 1:25-2:15 (13937); R 1:25-2:15 (13938); R 2:30-3:20 (13939); R 2:30-3:20 (13940); F 10:10-11:00 (31498); F 12:20-1:10 (13942)
CASE S&H; CASE GCC; credit given for only one of J323 or HIST-B 323
More about this class! Professor Roseman speaks on "A Different Approach" and "Challenging Assumptions" to the History of the Holocaust.
The Holocaust is one of the most horrific and challenging phenomena of the 20th Century. Yet it took decades for the world to appreciate quite how much it challenges our assumptions about progress and the modern world. In the last two decades or so, we have found important new sources behind the former iron curtain. We know much more about the policies and killings that took place outside the camps, and we are beginning to see that the Holocaust was a European phenomenon with Europe-wide collaboration. Against this background, this course will look at the origins and implementation of the Holocaust. Is there a modern propensity for genocide? Was antisemitism destined to end in mass murder? Did European imperialism create the murderous thinking that resulted in Auschwitz? How firmly rooted was it in German culture? How many people were involved and what induced them to go along with it. What was the role of the wider German population, and of the neighbors of Jewish victims all over Europe? Could the Allied and other international powers have done more to stop the killings? How did victims make sense of what was happening to them, and what chance did they have to resist or elude their fate?
