Posted 8/31/20 UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS, DARTMOUTH Syllabus Seminar: European History: HST 521/402 Jewish Resistance During the Holocaust FALL 2020 Time/Location: ONLINE (LIVE ON ZOOOM via MyCourses) Mondays: 5:00-7:30PM (Two Tuesdays: 9/29; 10/13) Instructor: Dr. Ilana F. Offenberger Office Hours: By appointment online via MyCourses Telephone – 978 590 9961/ Email: [email protected] Course Description: Did Jews resist during the Holocaust? When, where, why, and/or why not? This seminar will deepen our understanding of Jewish resistance during the Holocaust and explore what it meant for Jews to resist. We will begin with an overview of resistance and then turn to three focus points, followed by students’ individual research and presentations. Both armed and unarmed resistance will be discussed and analyzed throughout this course. As a class we will investigate: 1. Non-Confrontational Resistance and Confrontational Non-Violence (also referred to as spiritual or cultural resistance) in the Ghettos (with a focus on the Warsaw Ghetto, documentation through the Oneg Shabbos Archive, and artwork/literature produced in the Theresienstadt concentration camp in former Czechoslovakia); 2. Armed/Violent Resistance in the form of a planned attack, focused on the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in 1943; and 3. Armed/Violent Resistance in the form of partisan action, concentrated on the Bielski Group in Belarus. Philosophy, Course Goals,and Objectives This is not a lecture course. Beyond an introductory lecture or two, the (online) classroom experience will revolve around the discussion and analysis of assigned reading materials. You must come to class prepared by doing the readings and taking notes; the instructor will direct as much as participate in the discussion sessions but it is expected that you, individually and collectively with others, will drive the dialogue. This method is employed to develop a knowledge and understanding of the phenomena of Jewish resistance during the Holocaust. Students will also become acquainted with the dominant historiography on the subject. The purpose of the seminar is to facilitate the student’s development of historical skills and scholarship. As such, the ultimate objective of this 1 seminar is for the student to conduct proper research and produce a paper of respectable scholarly worth on subjects relevant to the topic of the seminar. The final component of the course will be a 30 page research paper (and brief presentation) documenting your understanding of both the materials discussed in this class, as well as additional examples of Jewish resistance: religious, spiritual, artistic, cultural, or armed. Students will be required to keep a JOURNAL throughout the duration of this course. Your journal will be a running log of the class discussion and your reading notes. It will be checked at the end of each class with your professor and colleagues, at which point you will be asked to reflect upon and highlight the headlines from the day’s notes (and the week’s readings). Each week, you will be required to write a 2-page article on the selected headline of your choice. Papers should be uploaded to MyCourses by Thursday. Headlines from your journal that develop into important stories may range from personal profiles to major events in politics, education, music, art, and or religion. Your weekly 2-page papers must pertain to the assigned reading for that week. By the end of the course, you will have a full journal of notes, plus eight 2-page articles of the headlines from the week. These articles will organically develop into your final paper, which will be composed in the form of a newspaper. Inspired from the Czech underground resistance newspaper entitled, VEDEM, your final seminar paper will be presented to your professor (and the class) in the form a newspaper that documents resistance during the Holocaust. You will document diverse types of resistance in various places at different times throughout the war years. In the final weeks of the course you will be required to revise your articles, reformat them chronologically, and briefly present your paper to the class. Evaluation: This is primarily a course in the instruction of historical research and analysis. Your grade will be based on your weekly preparation for classroom lectures, readings, and analysis/discussion of documents, as well as keeping your journal, writing eight short scholarly research papers, your final seminar paper and your individual class presentation. The breakdown is 50% written work vs 50% action work, more detailed as follows: 1. Class Participation and Journal (39%) 3 points each x13 meetings 2. 8 short papers: (24%) 3 points each 3. Final Seminar Newspaper (26%) and Final Presentation (11%) 2 All papers must conform to the Chicago (Turabian) Manual of Style format in footnoting and bibliography. Your final paper should be approximately 25-30 pages in length. All work must be completed by the dates set by the professor. Grading Policy: Your work will be evaluated according to your ability to demonstrate, in written form, a knowledge and understanding of the factual and theoretical material available to you in the context of a seminar research paper. Clear and concise prose is expected. Students are required to know and understand the Academic Integrity Policy of the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth. Attendance: Mandatory. Nearly each week, your attendance (3points) and written work (3points) comprise 6 points of your total final grade. If you miss class, if you miss the discussions, if you fail to turn in the writing assignments, you will be unable to write the final research paper and give the final presentation, thus unable to complete the course. This course is cumulative. Each session builds on the last. It is your responsibility to prepare accordingly to meet the demands of this course. Required Readings: 1) We Are Children Just the Same: Vedem, the Secret Magazine by the Boys of Terezin, edited by Marie Rut Krizkova • Hardcover: 199 pages • Publisher: Aventinum; 5th ed. edition (2003) • Language: English • ISBN-10: 8071512125 • ISBN-13: 978-8071512127 • ASIN: B00E785CLI 2) Scroll of Agony: The Warsaw Diary of Chaim Kaplan, edited and translated by Abraham I. Katsh • Paperback: 416 pages • Publisher: Indiana University Press; 1st Indiana University Press Ed edition (July 1, 1999) • Language: English • ISBN-10: 0253212936 • ISBN-13: 978-0253212931 3 3) Who Will Write Our History? Emanuel Ringelblum, the Warsaw Ghetto, and the Oyneg Shabes Archive, by Samuel Kassow • Paperback: 576 pages • Publisher: Vintage; Reprint edition (January 6, 2009) • Language: English • ISBN-10: 0307455866 • ISBN-13: 978-0307455864 4) Resistance: The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, by Israel Gutman • Paperback: 328 pages • Publisher: Mariner Books; Reprint edition (April 23, 1998) • Language: English • ISBN-10: 0395901308 • ISBN-13: 978-0395901304 • 5) I Remember Nothing More: The Warsaw Children's Hospital and the Jewish Resistance, by Adina Blady Szwajger [Note: this publication is out of print. Look for used book retailer, www.alibris.com] 6) Kazik: Memoirs of a Warsaw Ghetto Fighter, by Kazik (Simha Rotem), edited by Barbara Harshav • Paperback: 200 pages • Publisher: Yale University Press; New edition edition (June 1, 2002) • Language: English • ISBN-10: 0300093764 • ISBN-13: 978-0300093766 7) Defiance: The Bielski Partisans, by Nechama Tec • Paperback: 374 pages • Publisher: Oxford University Press (December 26, 2008) • Language: English • ISBN-10: 9780195376852 • ISBN-13: 978-0195376852 • ASIN: 0195376854 4 Required Viewing: 1. Brundibar 2. Uprising 3. Defiance 4. The Grey Zone (recommended) Suggested/Additional Readings • Zygmunt Klukowski, Diary from the Years of Occupation, 1939-1944 • Primo Levi, The Drowned and the Saved • Henri Michel, The Shadow War: Resistance in Europe, 1939-1945 • Zuckerman, Yitzhak. A Surplus of Memory: Chronicle of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising • Ainsztein, Reuben. Jewish Resistance in Nazi-occupied Eastern Europe: With a Historial Survey of the Jew as Fighter and Soldier in the Diaspora. New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 1974. • Glass, James M. Jewish Resistance during the Holocaust: Moral Uses of Violence and Will. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004. • Grubsztein, Meir, editor. Jewish Resistance during the Holocaust: Proceedings of the Conference on Manifestations of Jewish Resistance, Jerusalem, April 7-11, 1968. Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 1971. • Gutman, Israel. The Jews of Warsaw, 1939-1943: Ghetto, Underground, Revolt. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1982. • Krakowski, Shmuel. The War of the Doomed: Jewish Armed Resistance in Poland, 1942- 1944. New York: Holmes and Meier, 1984. 5 COURSE OUTLINE: FALL 2020 Monday, September 7 (Labor Day/No Live Class/ Tune into MyCourses) *You should use this week to order your books and to get a head start on the readings. You should familiarize yourself with the MyCourses site and set up your work station for our weekly ZOOM meetings. You will want to have a working microphone and video camera and plenty of light in front of you so we can see your face. You will also want to be sure you have a JOURNAL specifically for this course. You may want to begin by outlining your research aims for the course. Week 1: September 14 What is Resistance? o Welcome. Professor Introduction. o Student Introductions. o Syllabus Review /Question & Answer Session. o Historiography & historical context. o Discussion sessions on selections from the assigned