Professors Roger Brooks and Robert Wegs
M W F 11:15-12:05 Office Hours: To be announced
Spring 1991
Course Description: This course combines lectures, discussions, and film in an attempt to describe and reach some understanding of the nazi policy of eliminating Europe's Jewish populations. The course will consist of a background to German-Jewish relations before the nazi period, the Nazi seizure of power and its impact on Germany's Jewish population, World War II and the Holocaust, and the subsequent post-war problem of comprehending and coping with the Holocaust.
Course Requirements: Prepared attendance is required. Chronic absence may result in a failing grade. Mid-term and final examinations; one 8-10 pp. paper due no later than Apr 17.
Required Textbooks: Yehuda Bauer, A History of the Holocaust
Yitzhak Arad et al., eds., Documents of the
Holocaust
Readings packet (available at LaFortune Copy Shop)
PART ONE: Setting the Background
Jan 16: Brooks Who Were the Victims? Introduction to Judaism
Read: Bauer, 3-40
Fackenheim, Holocaust (xerox)
Jan 18: Wegs Who Were the Perpetrators? Introduction to Nazi Germany
Read: Documents 1, 4-5
Jan 21: Wegs 19th and 20th Centuries: New Politics and Popular Anti-Semitism
Read: Bauer, 40-52
Jan 23: Brooks 19th and 20th Centuries: Judaism in Response to Anti-Semitism
Read: Documents 14-20
Bauer, 53-72
Maccoby, Anti-Judaism and Anti-Semitism (xerox)
Jan 25: Film Ambulance
PART TWO: Prelude to Holocaust
Jan 28: Brooks Jewish Thought between the Wars: Enlightenment and Liberalism
Read: Documents 21-22, 24-29
Bauer, 169-192
Jan 30: Wegs The Role of Anti-Semitism in the Seizure of Power
Read: Documents 7-13, 30-31
Bauer, 73-88
Feb 1: Discussion
Feb 4: Wegs Worldwide Response: Western Appeasement and Eastern Anti-Semitism
Read: Documents 79, 82, 177
Bauer, 139-167
Tec, Helping Behavior and Rescue during the Holocaust
(xerox)
Feb 6: Wegs Why Annihilation?
Read: Documents 32-34, 40, 43-44, 47-52
Bauer, 93-133
Browning, One Day in Jozefow: Initiation to Mass
Murder
Feb 8: Film The Wannsee Conference
Read: Documents 54, 57, 59, 63-64, 68, 71-72
Bauer, 193-207
Feb 11: Wegs Why Annihilation (cont.)?
Read: Documents 73, 97-99, 106, 116-117, 123-124, 161,
163-167
Feb 13: Brooks Naming the Holocaust
Read: Neusner, Stranger at Home (xerox)
Feb 15: Discussion
Feb 18: Brooks Dehumanization and Surplus People
Read: Documents 2, 42, 46, 55-56, 74-77, 115
Feb 20: Wegs Pre-War Resistance and Lack Thereof: The German Response
Read: Gellately, A Monstrous Uneasiness (xerox)
Feb 22: Film The Deputy
Feb 25: Wegs Pre-War Resistance and Lack Thereof: The Churches' Response
Feb 27: Brooks German Theological Response
Read: Documents 38-39, 60-62, 65-67, 70
Mar 1: Guest Lecture Karl Adam: A Nazi Theologian
Mar 4: Exam Review
Mar 6: Midsemester Exam
Mar 8: Film The Warsau Ghetto
Read: Documents 88-89, 100-103, 114, 120, 127-128,
134-135, 138-
PART THREE: The War and Holocaust
Mar 18: Wegs Concentration and Annihilation Camps: Types and Operations
Read: Documents 158-159, 161, 163-167
Bauer, 207-226
Borowski, This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen(xerox)
Mar 20: Brooks Life in the Camps: Art and Literature
Read: I Never Saw Another Butterfly (xerox excerpts)
Miller, Shoah excerpts (xerox)
Mar 22: Discussion
Mar 25: Wegs Wartime External Response
Read: Bauer, 279-329
Mar 27: Brooks Jewish Resistance: Anielewicz, Czerniakow, and Kaplan
Read: Documents 88-89, 102-103, 111-113, 120, 125-127,129-130
Bauer, 245-278
PART FOUR: Coping with the Holocaust
Apr 3: Brooks Theological Response: Christian Theology
Read: Lanzmann, Shoah excerpt (xerox)
Apr 5: Brooks Theological Response: Jewish Theology and the Death of Liberalism
Read: Goldy, Heschel, Fackenheim, and Soloveitchik (xerox)
Apr 8: Wegs The Uniqueness Question
Read: Bauer, 330-350
Apr 10: Wegs DeNazification in Germany and Austria
Apr 12: Discussion
Apr 15: Brooks Theological Response: The Death of God
Read: Cohen, The Bridge over the Abyss (xerox)
Apr 17: Wegs Historiographical Response
Read: Eley, Nazism, Politics, and the Image of the
Past
Apr 19: Discussion
Apr 22: Brooks Belief and Disbelief: The Brenner Surveys
Apr 24: Guest Lecture Theodor Weiss: A Survivor's Witness and Testimony
Apr 26: Brooks Holocaust in the Context of Memory
Read: Vital, Lessons and Legacies (xerox)
Apr 29: Wegs Reunification and non-Reconstructionism
May 1: Brooks Commemoration and Ritual
May 3: Discussion The Convent at Auschwitz
Read: Auschwitz.... (xerox)
Brooks, The Yeshiva of the Holy Cross Cemetery (xerox)