Syllabus - (click here for PDF)
Weekly Planner - (click here for PDF)
JST 4701.82188 |
Dennis Hall Teaching Assistant |
Professor Alan L. Berger |
The Holocaust & Genocide |
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Fall 2012 |
Office: AH106 |
Office: AH106 |
GS 103 |
Phone: (561) 297-2979 |
Phone: (561) 297-2979 |
Tuesday/Thursday 9:30-10:50 |
Office Hours: Tues/Thur. 11-12 |
Office hours: Tues./Thurs. 2-3 |
home.fau.edu/aberger/web |
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Other hours by appointment |
The Holocaust is the “ultimate and archetypal genocide.” The systematic murder of every Jewish man, woman, and child for the “crime” of having been born holds a dark mirror to the face of so-called civilization. Moreover, the 20th century can rightly be called the genocide century. It began with the Genocide of the Armenians perpetrated by the Turkish government. The middle years of that century witnessed the Holocaust of the Jewish people by Nazi Germany and her many accomplices, as well as the Rwandan genocide and “ethnic cleansing” in Bosnia. The 21st century began with the genocide in Darfur (on-going), the second genocide in Africa within the last 15 years, and a pledge by the Iranian President – a Holocaust denier – to wipe the state of Israel off the map. This bleak record raises many questions about God, humanity, modernity and treatment of the Other.
During the Shoah society was divided into four groups: victims, perpetrators, bystanders, and a precious few rescuers. Moreover, the three criteria for a successful genocide were firmly in place: A group of people - Jews— defined as victims. A government –
Germany - dedicated to murdering every Jewish man, woman, and child. Finally, a world willing to do nothing to stop the annihilation process. The Holocaust required enormous numbers of people to operate the machinery of the death world. One question is: Why were there so many willing participants?
The Shoah had many causes. Antisemitism, Religion, anti-religion, rationality, racism, bureaucracy, economics, secularism, technology, modernity, and xenophobia all combined to produce gas chambers and ovens. At the height—or is it the depth?—of its depraved operations, Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest Nazi killing center, produced approximately 20,000 corpses a day. This grisly record was achieved by plans drawn up in the heart of Western Christendom, by educated people. Questions arise about the relationship between the church’s “Teaching of Contempt” and national socialism’s final solution of the Jewish question, on the one hand, and the role of the “technically competed barbarian” in operating the death camps, on the other hand.
This course is divided into three unequal parts: pre-Holocaust, Holocaust and post-Holocaust worlds. While employing the disciplinary insights of literature, theology, history and sociology, we focus on literature to enquire into the relationship between the particular event of the Holocaust and its universal implications. We also seek to articulate the contemporary lessons and legacies of the Holocaust by focusing on the future of Holocaust memory as exemplified in the selected writings of children and grandchildren of Holocaust survivors. Some of you are grandchildren of survivors; others of you know these grandchildren. All of you have a responsibility to the past and to the future.
Required Books:
(Available at the campus bookstore and many Barnes and Noble book stores, as well as online.)
Textbooks:
Berger, Alan L. & Naomi |
Second Generation Voices |
Levy, Primo |
Survival in Auschwitz |
Rubenstein, Richard L. & John K. Roth |
Approaches to Auschwitz 2nd edition |
Semel, Nava |
Maus I & II |
Spiegelman, Art |
The Time of the Uprooted |
Wiesel, Elie |
Night 2006 translation |
Wiesenthal, Simon |
The Sunflower Revised & Expanded Edition |
All required reading not from the required books are available in AH 106, or posted on BlackBoard. Wimberly library houses the crucial USC collection of Shoah Foundation Institute for Visual History and Education tapes. These are taped interviews of Holocaust survivors from 56 countries in a great variety of languages. These tapes were made under the auspices of the Steven Spielberg Survivors of the Shoah Project. Each student shall write two reports based on her/his viewing selected tapes.
The Raddock Family Eminent Scholar Chair for Holocaust Studies sponsors lectures and events of interest to students during the academic year. You are invited and encouraged to attend as many of these events as possible. Please consult the hand outs for speakers, dates and times.
Please peruse the attached list of recommended books. These books are arranged according to topics and may be useful for potential research projects. Remember, this list is advisory. The Holocaust is the most researched historical event in Jewish history and thus there are many sources from which to choose. Please check with either the Professor or T.A. to make certain of the title’s research usefulness.
VHA Online is an open access web site that includes a subset of 1,100 testimonies from the full VHA. Unlike the VHA, it may be accessed from off campus. There is a link to VHA Online on the library’s index-database page, but users may go directly to the web site, which may be found at:
http://vhaonline.usc.edu. Users are still required to register to use VHA Online.
Students agree that by taking this course all required and optional papers will be subject to submission for textual similarity review to Turnitin.com for the detection of plagiarism. All submitted papers will be included as source documents in the Turnitin.com reference database solely for the purpose of detecting plagiarism of such papers. Use of the Turnitin.com service is subject to the Terms and Conditions of Use posted on the Turnitin.com site. Plagiarism is punishable by expulsion from F.A.U.
“In compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) students who require special accommodations due to a disability to properly execute coursework must register with the Office for Students with Disabilities (OSD) located on the Boca Campus, SU 133, (561) 297-3880 and follow all OSD procedures.”
Cell phones are to be turned off in class. Also, texting is not allowed.
A written medical excuse or a death in the family are the only permitted excuses to miss an exam or a report. This is non-negotiable.
Grading Scale
94-100 = A |
83-86 = B |
73-76 = C |
63-66 = D |
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COURSE REQUIREMENTS AND GRADING |
15% |
Class participation. |
1) Attend class; exam content is based as much on class lectures and discussion as on the assigned readings and films being discussed. Attendance will be taken at each session. |
25% |
Exam #1 - October 11, 2012 |
1 hour in-class exam on topics covered in Weeks 1-7. Two essay questions. (Students may suggest possible exam questions.) |
25% |
Exam #2 - November 1, 2012 |
1 hour in-class exam on topics covered in weeks 8-13. (Students may suggest possible exam questions.) |
25% |
Final Exam Thursday, November 29, 2012 |
FINAL EXAM2 1/2-hour exam. |
5% |
Two Reports on Survivor Testimony - Report MUST be submitted in hard-copy All papers will be subjected to FAU’s plagiarism detection software prior to grading. |
Survivor Testimony
Listen, absorb, and think. Style as well as quality of analysis, insight, content, organization, spelling, and grammar count. Report should be 3 pages, using a standard 10-12 font, and no more than 1 ½” margins. |
WEEK |
DATE |
DUE DATES |
CLASS TOPIC(S) |
REQUIRED PREPARATION |
1 |
8/21 |
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Questionnaire & Course Expectations |
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8/23 |
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Why the Holocaust Matters Today |
Alvin H. Rosenfeld. The End of the Holocaust |
2 |
8/28 |
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Why the Holocaust Matters Today (con’) |
Rosenfeld. The End of the Holocaust pp. 271-280 |
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8/30 |
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Questions for Religion, Modernity, and Education |
Rubenstein & Roth (R&R) Approaches to Auschwitz (AA) pp. 1-27 |
3 |
9/4 |
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Film “Genocide” |
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9/6 |
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Bureaucracy & Sadism |
R.L. Rubenstein. The Cunning of History Chapter 1 |
4 |
9/11 |
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Pre-Holocaust World |
R&R (AA) Chapter 1 |
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9/13 |
Survivor Testimony Report #1 |
Christian & Secular Jew-hatred |
R&R (AA) Chapter 2 |
5 |
9/18 |
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Rosh Hashanah – No Class |
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9/20 |
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Holocaust World |
R&R (AA) Chapter 5 |
6 |
9/25 |
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Racial Antisemitism |
R&R (AA) Chapter 7 |
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9/27 |
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Survivor Testimony – Mr. James Bachner (Guest Lecturer) |
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7 |
10/2 |
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Holocaust World |
Elie Wiesel. Nightpp. 3-65 |
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10/4 |
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Where was God in Auschwitz? (con’t) |
Night pp. 65-115 |
8 |
10/9 |
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Simchat Torah – No Class |
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10/11 |
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EXAM #1 |
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9 |
10/16 |
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Where was Man in Auschwitz? |
Primo Levi. Survival in Auschwitz poem, chs. 1,2,3,4,5,6 |
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10/18 |
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Where was Man in Auschwitz? (con’t) |
Survival in Auschwitz chs. 7,9,10,11,13 |
WEEK |
DATE |
DUE DATES |
CLASS TOPIC(S) |
REQUIRED PREPARATION |
10 |
10/23 |
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Post Holocaust World |
Simon Wiesenthal. The Sunflower pp. 3-50 |
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10/25 |
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Is Forgiveness Possible? (con’t) |
The Sunflower pp. 51-98 |
11 |
10/30 |
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The Righteous Few |
Recommended Reading: |
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11/1 |
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EXAM #2 |
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12 |
11/6 |
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Intergenerational Transmission of Trauma |
A.L. and Naomi Berger. Second Generation Voices Recommended Reading: |
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11/8 |
Survivor’s Testimony |
Changing Paradigms |
Art Spiegelman Maus I & II |
13 |
11/13 |
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The Future |
Nava Semel. And the Rat Laughed |
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11/15 |
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The Future |
Semel. Part four |
14 |
11/20 |
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The Future |
Semel. Part five |
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11/22 |
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Thanksgiving – N0 CLASS |
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15 |
11/27 |
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Fighting Antisemitism |
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11/29 |
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Final Exam |
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RECOMMENDED REFERENCES (Some books appear in more than one category)
| Survivors | ||
| Améry, Jean | At the Mind’s Limit | |
| Becker, Jurek | Jakob, the Liar | |
| DeSilva, Caro De | In Memory’s Kitchen | |
| Delbo, Charlotte | None of Us Shall Return | |
| Fink, Ida | A Scrap of Time | |
| Herzog, Henry A. | And Heaven Shed No Tears | |
| Kesler, Michael | Shards of War | |
| Langer, Lawrence L. (editor) | Art from the Ashes |
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| Klemperer, Victor | I Will Bear Witness: A Diary of the Nazi Years, 1933-1941 |
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| Rubinstein, Erna F. | The Survivor in Us All | |
| Sendyk, Helen | The End of Days | |
| Sendyk, Helen | New Dawn: The Triumph of Life After the Holocaust | |
| Wainer, Ann | Family Portrait | |
| Wiesel, Elie | From the Kingdom of Memory | |
| Wiesel, Elie | The Forgotten | |
| Wiesel, Elie | The Gates of the Forest |
| Berenbaum, Michael | Witness to the Holocaust | |
| Greene, Joshua and Kumar, Siva | Witness: Voices from the Holocaust | |
| Greenspan, Henry | On Listening to Holocaust Survivors | |
| Langer, Lawrence, L. | Holocaust Testimonies | |
| Patterson, David | Sun Turned to Darkness: Memory and Recovery in the Holocaust Memoir | |
| Patterson, David | Along the Edge of Annihilation: The Collapse and Recovery of Life in the Holocaust Diary |
| Dwork, Deborah | Children With a Star | |
| Friedländer, Saul | When Memory Comes | |
| Gille, Elizabeth | Shadows of a Childhood | |
| Marks, Jane (Editor) | The Hidden Children: The Secret Survivors of the Holocaust | |
| Nir, Yehuda | The Lost Childhood | |
| Oberski, Jona | Childhood | |
| Stein, André (Editor) | Hidden Children | |
| Zapruder, Alexandra (Editor) | Salvaged Pages: Young Writers’ Diaries of the Holocaust |
| Brenner, Rachel F. | Writing as Resistance: Four Women Confronting the Holocaust: Edith Stein, Simone | |
| Weil, Anne Frank, Etty Hillesum | ||
| Gurewitsch, Brana (Editor) | Mothers, Sisters, Resisters: Oral Histories of Women Who Survived the Holocaust | |
| Kremer, S. Lillian | Women’s Holocaust Writing | |
| Phayer, Michael & Fleishner, Eva (Editors) | Cries in the Night: Women Who Challenged the Holocaust | |
| Rittner, Carol & Roth, John K. (Editors) | Different Voices: Women and the Holocaust |
| Bauer, Yehuda | They Chose Life: Jewish Resistance | |
| DesPres, Terence | The Survivor | |
| Eliach, Yaffa | Hasidic Tales of the Holocaust | |
| Herzog, Henry A. | And Heaven Shed No Tears | |
| Rittner, Carol and Myers, Sondra (Editors) | The Courage to Care | |
| Schindler, Pesach | Hasidic Responses to the Holocaust in the Light of Hasidic Thought | |
| Syrkin, Marie | Blessed is the Match: The Story of Jewish Resistance |
| Friedman, Philip | Their Brothers’ Keepers | |
| Gushee, David P. | The Righteous Gentiles of the Holocaust |
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| Kenneally, Thomas | Schindler’s List | |
| Levine, Hillel | In Search of Sugihara | |
| Opdyke, Helen Gut | In My Hands | |
| Sugihara, Yukiko | Visas for Life | |
| Tec, Nechama | Resilience and Courage: Women, Men, and the Holocaust |
| Browning, Christopher | Ordinary Men | |
| Dawidowicz, Lucy | The War Against the Jews | |
| Glass, James M. | Life Unworthy of Life | |
| Goldhagen, Daniel Jonah | Hitler’s Willing Executioners | |
| Hilberg, Raul | The Destruction of the European Jews | |
| Hilberg, Raul | Perpetrators, Victims, Bystanders | |
| Klee, Ernst, Dressen, Willi, and Riess, Volker (Editors) | The Good Old Days: The Holocaust as Seen by Its Perpetrators and Bystanders | |
| Lifton, Robert Jay | The Nazi Doctors | |
| Proctor, Robert | Racial Hygiene: Medicine Under the Nazis |
| Flannery, Edward H. | The Anguish of the Jews | |
| Hitler, Adolf (Translated by Ralph Manheim) | Mein Kampf | |
| Isaac, Jules | Jesus and Israel | |
| Langmuir, Gavin | Toward a Definition of Antisemitism | |
| Langmuir, Gavin | History, Religion, and Antisemitism | |
| Lazare, Bernard | Antisemitism: Its History and Causes | |
| Littell, Franklin H. | The Crucifixion of the Jews | |
| Nicholls, William | Christian Antisemitism: A History of Hate | |
| Parkes, James | The Conflict of the Church and the Synagogue | |
| Powell, Lawrence N. | Troubled Memory: Anne Levy, the Holocaust, and David Duke’s Louisiana | |
| Ruether, Rosemary | Faith and Fratricide | |
| Simonelli, Frederick J. | American Fuehrer: George Lincoln Rockwell and the American Nazi Party | |
| Trachtenberg, Joshua | The Devil and the Jews: The Medieval Conception of the Jews and its Relation to Modern Antisemitism | |
| Wistrich, Robert S. | Antisemitism: The Longest Hatred |
| Bauer, Yehuda | A History of the Holocaust | |
| Bauer, Yehuda | Jews For Sale | |
| Berenbaum, Michael | The World Must Know | |
| Berenbaum, Michael | Witness to the Holocaust | |
| Dawidowicz, Lucy | The War Against the Jews | |
| Dwork, Deborah, Van Pelt, and Robert Jan | The Holocaust: A History | |
| Eliach, Yaffa | There Once Was a World | |
| Ferencz, Benjamin | Less Than Slaves | |
| Friedländer, Saul | Nazi Germany and the Jews | |
| Friedländer, Saul | Pius XII and the Third Reich | |
| Hilberg, Raul | The Destruction of the European Jews | |
| Katz, Steven T. | The Holocaust in Historical Context | |
| Laqueur, Walter | The Terrible Secret | |
| Littell, Franklin H. & Locke, Hubert G. (Editors) | The German Church Struggle and the Holocaust | |
| Martin, Gilbert | The Holocaust | |
| Miller, Judith | One By One, By One: Facing the Holocaust | |
| Robinson, Jacob | And the Crooked Shall Be Made Straight | |
| Tec, Nechama | In the Lion’s Den | |
| Wood, E. Thomas and Jankowski, Stanisĺaw | Karski: How One Man Tried to Stop the Holocaust |
| Dinnerstein, Leonard | America and the Survivors of the Holocaust | |
| Feingold, Henry | The Politics of Rescue: The Roosevelt Administration and the Holocaust, 1938-1945 |
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| Helmreich, William | Against All Odds | |
| Linenthal, Edward | Preserving Memory | |
| Lipstadt, Deborah | Beyond Belief: The American Press and the Coming of the Holocaust, 1933-1945 | |
| Morse, Arthur | While Six Million Died | |
| Novick, Peter | The Holocaust in American Life | |
| Ross, Robert | So It Was True | |
| Wyman, David | The Abandonment of the Jews |
| Arendt, Hannah | Eichmann in Jerusalem | |
| Arendt, Hannah | The Origins of Totalitarianism | |
| Bauman, Zygmunt | Modernity and the Holocaust | |
| Berenbaum, Michael | After Tragedy and Triumph | |
| Berger, Alan L, Cargas, Harry J., and Nowak, Susan E | The Continuing Agony: From the Carmelite Convent to the Crosses at Auschwitz | |
| Carroll, James | Constantine’s Sword: The Church and the Jews | |
| Fleischner, Eva (Editor) | Auschwitz: Beginning of a New Era? | |
| Friedlander, Albert | Riders Towards the Dawn | |
| Friedlander, Albert | Out of the Whirlwind, 2nd Edition | |
| Friedländer, Saul | Probing the Limits of Representation: Nazism and the Final Solution | |
| Haas, Peter | Morality after Auschwitz | |
| Katz, Fred E. | Ordinary People and Extraordinary Evil | |
| Kren, George & Rapport, Leon (Editors) | The Holocaust and the Crisis of Human Behavior | |
| Lipstadt, Deborah | Denying the Holocaust | |
| LaCapra, Dominick | Representing the Holocaust: History, Theory, Trauma | |
| Martin, Gilbert | Holocaust Journey | |
| Morley, Father John | Vatican Diplomacy and the Jews During the Holocaust 1939-1943 | |
| Robinson, Jacob | And the Crooked Shall Be Made Straight | |
| Rubenstein, Richard L. | The Age of Triage | |
| Rubenstein, Richard L. | The Cunning of History | |
| Stern, Kenneth S. | Holocaust Denial | |
| Thomas, Laurence | Vessels of Evil | |
| Wiesel, Elie | A Jew Today |
| Berkovits, Eliezer | Faith After the Holocaust | |
| Brenner, R. Reeve | The Faith and Doubt of Holocaust Survivors | |
| Cargas, Harry J. | A Christian Response to the Holocaust | |
| Eckardt, Alice & Roy | Long Night’s Journey into Day | |
| Eliach, Yaffa | Hasidic Tales of the Holocaust | |
| Fackenheim, Emil | God’s Presence in History | |
| Fackenheim, Emil | The Jewish Bible After the Holocaust | |
| Fackenheim, Emil | To Mend the World | |
| Greenberg, Irving | CLAL Thesis |
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| Isaac, Jules | Jesus and Israel | |
| Katz, Steven T. | Post-Holocaust Dialogues | |
| Phayer, Michael | The Catholic Church and the Holocaust, 1930-1965 | |
| Rosenbaum, Irving | The Holocaust and Halakah | |
| Roth, John K. and Berenbaum, Michael (Editors) | The Holocaust: Religious and Philosophical Implications | |
| Wiesel, Elie | A Jew Today |
| Bar-On, Dan | The Legacy of Silence | |
| Berger, Alan L. | Children of Job | |
| Berger, Joseph | Displaced Persons: Growing Up American After the Holocaust | |
| Bergmann, M. S. & Jucovy, M. E. (Editors) | Generations of the Holocaust | |
| Epstein, Helen | Children of the Holocaust: Conversations with Sons and Daughters of Survivors | |
| Epstein, Helen | Where She Came From | |
| Pilcer, Sonia | The Holocaust Kid | |
| Rosenbaum, Thane | Elijah Visible | |
| Rosenbaum, Thane | Second Hand Smoke | |
| Sichrovsky, Peter | Born Guilty: Children of Nazi Families | |
| Stollman, Aryeh Lev | The Far Euphrates | |
| Stollman, Aryeh Lev | The Illuminated Soul |
| Berger, Alan L. | Crisis and Covenant: The Holocaust in American Jewish Fiction | |
| Bradley, Ernestine Schlandt | The Language of Silence | |
| Cole, Tim | Selling the Holocaust | |
| Eliach, Yaffa | Hasidic Tales of the Holocaust | |
| Hartman, Geoffrey (Editor) | Holocaust Remembrance | |
| Hartman, Geoffrey | The Longest Shadow | |
| Horowitz, Sarah | Voicing the Void | |
| Loshitzky, Yosefa (Editor) | Spielberg’s Holocaust: Critical Perspectives on Schindler’s List | |
| Kenneally, Thomas | Schindler’s List |
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| Rosenfeld, Alvin | Thinking About the Holocaust | |
| Schindler, Pesach | Hasidic Responses to the Holocaust in the Light of Hasidic Thought | |
| Schwarz-Bart, André | The Last of the Just | |
| Shandler, Jeffrey | While America Watches: Televising the Holocaust | |
| Szpilman, Wladysĺaw | The Pianist | |
| Young, James | The Texture of Memory: Holocaust Memorials and Meaning | |
| Young, James | Writing and Rewriting the Holocaust: Narrative and the Consequences of Interpretation |
| Berger, Alan L. (Editor) | Bearing Witness to the Holocaust: 1939-1989 | |
| Charny, Israel (Editor) | Encyclopedia of Genocide |
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| Fleischner, Eva (Editor) | Auschwitz: Beginning of a New Era? | |
| Hayes, Peter (Editor) | Lessons and Legacies, Vol. I, “The Meaning of the Holocaust in a Changing World” | |
| Hayes, Peter (Editor) | Lessons and Legacies, Vol. III, “Memory, Memorialization, and the Dead” | |
| Jacobs, Steven L. (Editor) | The Holocaust Now | |
| Katz, Steven T. | Historicism, the Holocaust, and Zionism | |
| Kremer, Lillian (Editor) | Holocaust Literature: An Encyclopedia of Writers and Their Works | |
| Laqueur, Walter (Editor) | The Holocaust Encyclopedia |
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| Patterson, David, Berger, Alan L., and Cargas, Sarita | Encyclopedia of Holocaust Literature | |
| Riggs, Thomas (Editor) | Reference Guide to Holocaust Literature | |
| Rittner, Carol and Roth, John K. (Editors) | From the Unthinkable to the Unavoidable: American Christian and Jewish Scholars Encounter the Holocaust | |
| Roth, John K. & Maxwell, Elizabeth (Editors) | Remembering for the Future: The Holocaust in an Age of Genocide | |
| Schilling, Donald G. (Editor) | Lessons and Legacies, Vol. IV, “Reflections on Religion, Justice, Sexuality and Genocide” | |
| Sicher, Efraim (Editor) | Breaking Crystal | |
| Smelser, Ronald (Editor) | Lessons and Legacies, Vol. V, “The Holocaust and Justice” | |
| Thompson, Larry M. (Editor) | Lessons and Legacies, Vol. II, “Ethics and Religion” |
| Berger, Alan L., Harry James Cargas, and Susan Nowak (Editors) | The Continuing Agony: From the Carmelite Convent to the Crosses at Auschwitz | |
| Bishops’ Committee for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs. | The Bible, the Jews, and the Death of Jesus: A Collection of Catholic Documents |
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| Carroll, James | Constantine’s Sword: The Church and the Jews; A History | |
| Frymer-Kensley, Tikva, David Novak, Peter Ochs, David Fox Spadmol, and Michael A. Signer (Editors) | Christianity in Jewish Times | |
| Kessler, E., J. Pawlikowski, and J. Bawki (Editors) | Jews and Christians in Conversation: Crossing Cultures and Generations | |
| Phayer, Michael | The Catholic Church and the Holocaust, 1930-1985 | |
| Rittner, Carol and John K. Roth (Editors) | Pope Pius XII and the Holocaust |