Ginsburg Ingerman Overseas Students Program Ben-Gurion University of the Negev

RReessppoonnsseess tttoo ttthhee HHoolllooccaauussttt Spring Semester 124-2-311

Lecturer: Dr. Natan Aridan e-mail: [email protected]

COURSE DESCRIPTION How do you teach a course on the Shoah to International Students in Israel? What are the central issues? What is different about studying a similar course back home? The course aims to introduce students from multi-disciplinary and multi-ethnic backgrounds, not only the facts but also different attitudes in the historiography and approaches to the Shoah. Students will learn about the background and the various stages of the implementation of laws and actions against the Jews that culminated in the ‘final solution’ that annihilated one third of the Jewish people. In addition to these stages students will learn about world reaction and how the Jews in Palestine and in the US attempted to rescue Jews under Nazi occupation or the threat of Nazi laws as well as the fate of non-Jews. Other subjects include philosophy, jurisprudence, literature, music, art, films and television. The course devotes much space to Israelis response to the Shoah and its ongoing manifestations. Language of Instruction is English.

Main Disciplines: History, Politics, Religion

Course Structure:

Lecture: Total # of Credits: 4

ECTS (European Credit Transfer System) 6

COURSE REQUIREMENTS  Regular attendance, active participation (20%)  A mid-term paper (30%)  A Final exam (50%)

CLASS TOPIC

 EXPECTATIONS; ANTISEMITISM – ‘THE LONGEST HATRED’ -1-  COMING TO A GLOSSARY OF ‘TERMS’ OF THE HOLOCAUST  Reading Glossary of the Holocaust and timeline

 NAZI IDEOLOGY AND THE JEWS  Readings ‘The Program of the National-Socialist (NAZI) German Workers Party’, 24 -2- February 1920; ‘Anti-Jewish Plans of the Nazis before Their Rise to Power,’ March 1920; extracts, Hitler’s Mein Kampf, 1923 in Documents on the Holocaust – Selected Sources on the Destruction of the Jews of Germany and Austria, Poland, and the Soviet Union (eds) Yitzhak Arad, Yisrael Gutman, & Abraham Margaliot [hereafter: Arad, Gutman, & Margoliot] (Jerusalem, 1981), 15-19, 22-26.

 NAZI RACIAL LAWS AGAINST THE JEWS, 1933-1939  Readings 1. Lucy Dawidowicz, ‘Laws Against the Jews,’ A Holocaust Reader (New York, 1976), 38-53. -3- 2. Nuremberg Laws against the Jews, 15 September 1935, Arad, Gutman, & Margaliot, 76-81. 3. Evian Conference on Jewish Refugees, July 1938, Arad, Gutman, & Margaliot, 95-98. 4. The Riots of Kristallnacht, November 1938, Arad, Gutman, & Margaliot, 102-15. 5. Kristallnacht, November 1938, 1-6.

 GHETTOS; THE JUDENRAT COUNCILS; ETHNIC CLEANSING, 1939- 1941 (1)  Readings -4- 1. Heydrich Instructions on Policy and Operations Concerning Jews in Occupied Territories, 21 September 1939, Arad, Gutman, & Margaliot, 173- 78. 2. Christopher Browning, “From “Ethnic Cleaning” to Genocide to the “Final Solution” – The Evolution of Nazi Jewish Policy, 1939-1941,” Nazi Policy, Jewish Workers, German Killers (Cambridge, 2000), 1-25.

 GHETTOS; THE JUDENRAT COUNCILS; ETHNIC CLEANSING, 1939- 1941 (2) -5-  Readings 1. Yehuda Bauer & Natan Rotenstreich, “Life in the Ghettos,” The Holocaust as Historical Experience (New York, 1981), 169-91. 2. Bauer & Rotenstreich, “Judenrat and the Jewish Response,” The Holocaust as Historical Experience, 223-71.

 FORCED LABOR  Readings 1. Christopher Browning, “Jewish Workers in Poland Nazi Policy,” -6- Jewish Workers, German Killers (Cambridge, 2000), 58-88. 2. Felicija Karay, “Women in the Forced-Labor Camps,” Dalia Ofer & Leonora J. Watzman (eds), Women in the Holocaust (New York, 1998), 285- 309. 3. Idit Gil – Poster: The Radom Transport as a Paradigm of Jewish Forced Labor during the Holocaust.

-7-  THE “FINAL SOLUTION” – THE WANNSEE CONFERENCE, 1942  Readings 1. Yisrael Gutman & Chaim Schatzker, “The “Final Solution” – “Planning and Implementation,” The Holocaust and Its Significance (Jerusalem, 1983), 104-19. 2. Gutman & Schatzker, “The “Final Solution” – For the Entire Jewish People,” 134-42. 3. Protocol of the Wannsee Conference, 20 January 1942, Arad, Gutman, & Margaliot, 249-61.

CLASS TOPIC

 THE EXTERMINATION CAMPS  Readings -8- 1. Yehuda Bauer, “The “Final Solution,” A History of the Holocaust (New York, 1982), 193-226. 2. John S. Conway, “The First Report about Auschwitz,” Simon Wiesenthal Center Annual 1 (1984): 133-52.

 JEWISH RESISTANCE, THE STUGGLE TO SURVIVE – GHETTOS & CAMPS (1)  Readings -9- 1. Resistance United States Holocaust Museum (Washington, 2010), 3- 41. 2. Elie Weisel, Night, 400-11. 3. Primo Levi, If This is a Man [excerpts] (New York, 1959), 208-26. 4. Screening of Primo Levi National Theatre, London.

 JEWISH RESISTANCE, THE STUGGLE TO SURVIVE – GHETTOS & CAMPS (2)  Readings -10- 1. Yehuda Bauer, “Resistance,” A History of the Holocaust (New York, 1982), 245-77. 2. “The Jewish Residential Area of Warsaw is No More,” S.S Gen. Stroop to Hitler, 19 April 1943. 3. Shmuel Zygelbaum, “Where is the World's Conscience,” New York Times, 4 June 1943.

 THE ALLIES AND THE EXTERMINATION OF THE JEWS  Readings -11- 1. Richard Breitman, “Intelligence and the Holocaust,” David Bankier, (ed), Secret Intelligence and the Holocaust (New York, 2006), 17-47. 2. Rafael Medoff, “New Evidence Concerning the Allies and Auschwitz,” American Journal of Jewish History 89.1 (2001): 91-104.

 RESCUE ATTEMPTS – THE DILEMMAS FACING THE YISHUV  Readings 1. Selected Documents – The Yishuv and the Fate of European Jewry. -12- 2. Dina Porat, “Palestinian Jewry and the Jewish Agency Public Response to the Holocaust,” Israel Society, the Holocaust and its Survivors (London, 2008), 253-80. 3. Tom Segev, “What is There to Understand, They Died and That’s It,” The Seventh Million (New York, 1993), 458-476. 4. Tuvia Friling, “The New Historians and the Failure of Rescue Operations during the Holocaust,” Israel Studies 8.3 (2003): 25-64.

 “ORDINARY MEN”? − THE PERPETRATORS AND COLLABORATORS  Readings -13- 1. Christopher Browning, Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution (New York, 1991), 159-89. 2. The “Willing Executioners”/“Ordinary Men” Debate: Daniel Goldhagen, Christopher Browning, Leon Wieseltier (USHMM, Washington, 2006), 11-48.

 UNITED STATES AND THE HOLOCAUST  Readings -14- 1. David Wyman, “The United States,” The World Reaction to the Midterm Holocaust (ed) (Baltimore and London, 1996), 693-748. due 2. Alvin A. Rosenfeld, “The Americanization of the Holocaust,” Thinking About the Holocaust (ed) (Bloomington IN, 1997), 119-50.

CLASS TOPIC

 NON-JEWISH VICTIMS OF THE HOLOCAUST  Readings 1. Victims of the Nazi Era, 1933-1945: Sinti and Roma (“Gypsies”) -15- (USHMM, Washington), 1-13. 2. Victims of the Nazi Era, 1933-1945: Poles (USHMM, Washington), 1- 28. 3. Victims of the Nazi Era, 1933-1945: Jehovah’s Witnesses (USHMM, Washington), 1-11.

 THE IMMEDIATE AFTERMATH OF WORLD WAR TWO  Readings -16- 1. Henry Friedlander, “The Judiciary and Nazi War Crimes in Post-War Germany,” Simon Wiesenthal Center Annual 1 (1984): 27-44. 2. Judith Tydor Baumel, “The Politics of Spiritual Rehabilitation in the DP Camps,” Simon Wiesenthal Center Annual 6 (1989): 59-79.

 ISRAELIS CONFRONT THE HOLOCAUST (1)  Readings 1. Dina Porat, “Attitudes of the Young State of Israel toward the -17- Holocaust and Its Survivors, A Debate over Identity and Values,” Lawrence Silberstein (ed), New Perspectives on Israeli History (New York, 1994), 157- 74. 2. Dalia Ofer, “History, Memory and Identity Perceptions in Israel,” Uzi Rebhun and Chaim I. Waxman (eds), Jews in Israel, Contemporary, Social and Cultural Patterns (Waltham, MA, 2004), 394-417.

 ISRAELS CONFRONT THE HOLOCAUST (2) -18-  Readings 1. Idit Gil, “Teaching the Shoah in History Classes in Israeli High Schools,” Israel Studies 14.2 (2009): 1-25. 2. Jackie Feldman, “Marking the Boundaries of the Enclave: Defining the Israeli Collective through the Poland “Experience,” Israel Studies 7.2 (2002): 84-114.

 THE ‘TRIALS’ OF THE HOLOCAUST IN ISRAEL  Readings 1. Yehiam Weitz, “The Holocaust on Trial: The Impact of the Kasztner -19- and Eichmann Trials on Israeli Society,” Israel Studies 1.2 (1996): 1-26. 2. Hanna Yablonka, “The Development of Holocaust Consciousness in Israel: The Nuremberg, Kapos, Kastner, and Eichmann Trials,” Israel Studies 8.3 (2003): 1-24. 3. Knesset Proceedings, Reparations from Germany Debate, 7 January 1952.

 HOLCAUST COMMEMORATION REPRESENTATION IN ISRAEL  Readings 1. Natasha Goldman, “Israeli Holocaust Memorial Strategies at Yad -20- Vashem: From Silence to Recognition,” Art Journal 65.2 (2006): 102-22. 2. Mooli Brog, “Victims and Victors: “Holocaust” and “Heroism” Commemoration and the, Transformation of Israel Collective Memory,” Israel Studies 8.3 (2003): 65-99. 3. Judith Baumel, “Rachel Laments Her Children – Representation of Women in Israeli Holocaust Memorials,” Israel Studies 1.1 (1996): 100-26.

 THE HOLOCAUST IN THE MEDIA AND THE ARTS  Readings 1. Alan Mintz, “Schindler's List,” The Holocaust at the Movies -21- (Washington DC, 2001), 125-58. 2. Ziva Amichai-Maisels, Depiction and Interpretation – The Influence of the Holocaust on the Visual Arts (Oxford, 1993) [selected]. 3. Art From Concentration Camps, 1939-1945 (Philadelphia, 1981) [selected].

 PHILOSOPHICAL AND SPIRITUAL RESPONSES TO THE HOLOCAUST -22- (1)  Reading Seymour Cain, “The Question and the Answers after Auschwitz,” Judaism 20 (1971): 263-78

 PHILOSOPHICAL AND SPIRITUAL RESPONSES TO THE HOLOCAUST (2)  Readings -23- 1. Hans Jonas, “The Concept of God after Auschwitz,” Mortality and Morality: A Search for Good after Auschwitz (Illinois 1996), 465-76. 2. Richard Rubenstein, and John Roth, “The Silence of God, Philosophical and Religious Reflection on the Holocaust,” Approaches to Auschwitz (London, 1987), 290-336.

 HOLOCAUST DENIAL -24-  Reading Holocaust Denial on Trial: Deniers vs. History; Irving v. Lipstadt: Denial on Trial - http://www.hdot.org/

-25-  TESTIMONIES, LESSONS AND LEGACIES – CONCLUSIONS  Reading To be announced

EXAM