HIS 234 - The Global Holocaust

According to a 2018 survey, over half of millennials have never heard of Auschwitz, the Nazi’s most famous death and labor camp system. However, even Auschwitz represents just one of the myriad experiences that we now understand as the Holocaust. This course introduces students to full, complex, and largely forgotten array of phenomena that we understand as part of the Nazi-led program of mass murder. Beginning with the rise of fascism across Europe and discriminatory policies against Nazi Jews in Germany, it follows the ways in which local populations - both Jewish and non-Jewish - responded to and shaped the realities of the Holocausts in local contexts. Topics will include the role of war in the development of the Final Solution, ghetto life, various forms of resistance, hiding and escape, the often-forgotten death camps of the East, the “Holocaust by bullets,” the interconnected realities of Nazi race hatred and eugenics, the role of prisoners in the concentration camp system, partisan warfare, and complicity of local populations. This course will provide students access to the most complicated and ever-present debates in history, including the role of memory and memorialization, how to record and study trauma, morality in war, systemic vs local racism, and responsible practices of historical methodologies.

Satisfies History major and minor requirement.
Satisfies Historical Thought requirement.
Satisfies Justice, Equality and Community requirement.