HST386/387: The Holocaust: The Destruction of European Jewry
40 credits (semesters 1 and 2)
Module Leader:
| Pre-requisites |
A pass in at least two history modules at level two.
| Module Summary |
The aim of this module is to introduce students to the various debates on the origins and execution of the 'final solution' in Nazi occupied Europe during the Second World War. On completion of this module, students will have attained and demonstrated a satisfactory level of competence in the following areas. Firstly, an understanding of the main elements of holocaust history and a familiarity with the different methodological and historiographical debates engendered by historians over the last fifty years to explain the 'final solution'. Secondly, an ability to evaluate primary source material from the period (in translation), including film evidence where appropriate.
| Teaching |
The module will be taught primarily through a seminar programme, but will also involve occasional lectures and presentations of audio-visual material.
The module is divided into three distinct sections. The first examines the origins of the Holocaust through a comparison of traditional German antisemitism with that preached by Hitler and the Nazi Movement before looking at the persecution of the Jews inside Germany in the period 1933-1939. This includes a discussion of the main antisemitic legislation and actions of the period (such as the Nuremberg Laws and the Reichskristallnacht) and focuses on the element of planning involved.
The second section deals with the crucial months between the end of 1939 and the autumn of 1941, the period which saw the beginnings of the ghettoisation and deportation of European Jewry. The main focus here is again on the development of policies directed against the Jews and the crucial question of when the decison to implement a concerted policy of physical extermination was taken.
The final part of the module deals with the execution of the 'final solution'. Apart from analysing the mechanics of the extermination process and the general question of why so many Jews fell victim to the extermination process, attention will also be given to the variations in policy which occurred and the differential rates of survival evident across Nazi-occupied Europe. This will involve comparative studies of perpetrators, victims and circumstances in which the deportation and extermination process was carried out, and include, for example, an examination of the role of local complicity in the identification and deportation of Jews, and the effects of resistance, both Jewish and non-Jewish, in influencing survival.
| Assessment |
The word limit for essays includes footnotes, but excludes the bibliography.
| Selected Reading |
- Saul Friedländer, The Years of Extermination: Nazi Germany and the Jews 1939-1945 (London: Weidenfeld, 2007)
- Sybille Steinbacher, Auschwitz: A History (London, 2005)
- Christopher Browning, The Origins of the Final Solution: The Evolution of Nazi Jewish Policy, September 1939 - March 1942 (London, 2005)
- Peter Longerich, The Unwritten Order: Hitler's Role in the Final Solution (London, 2003)
- Götz Aly, The Final Solution: Nazi Population Policy and the Murder of the European Jews (London, 1999)
- Philippe Burrin, Hitler and the Jews: The Genesis of the Holocaust (London, 1994)
- Lucy Dawidowicz, The War against the Jews (London, 1990)
- Gerald Fleming, Hitler and the Final Solution (Oxford, 1986)
- Saul Friedländer, Nazi Germany and the Jews (New York, 1997)
- Raul Hilberg, The Destruction of the European Jews (New York, 1985)
| Intended Learning Outcomes |
Students completing this module will have developed:
- Their ability to recognise, analyse and evaluate a wide variety of (translated) documentary material taken from German and other European sources, including government papers, diaries, memoirs and other forms of contemporary literature.
- Their ability to become familiar with a variety of literary and documentary genres, including letters, memoirs and eye-witness accounts of participants and victims, as well official papers.
- Their ability to distinguish between different schools of interpretation and historical debate on the Holocaust, attaining an awareness of current research issues beyond the published literature developed a profound understanding of issues surrounding the study of the Holocaust and how these are framed by national debates on the history of the Second World War.
- Their ability to arrive at independent conclusions on salient issues of interpretation and source criticism.
- Their ability to take responsibility for running seminars, elaborating and defending an intellectual position to other members of the group as well as introducing primary and secondary material to them.
- Their ability to write informed and cogent essays, and commentaries on documents, under pressure of time.