The Holocaust in History and Memory

Catalog description

The Holocaust demands, yet stubbornly resists, historical understanding. This course addresses the Nazis' genocidal assault upon European Jewry and others by examining a wide range of factors that contributed to it. The course explores the roots of modern German anti-Semitism, the origins of Nazism, the establishment of the Nazi dictatorship, the sharpening of anti-Jewish measures during the Third Reich, and the escalation of persecution following the outbreak of World War II that culminated in the so-called Final Solution. Students consider the legacy of the Holocaust after 1945 by examining the postwar struggle to preserve its lessons in memory, the difficulty in finding adequate cultural means of representing its extreme dimensions, and the challenge of understanding the lessons that the event left for the postwar world.