Fall 2003

HIS 383 • Hitler, the Holocaust and Memory, 1933 to the present

Course Description

How have changing patterns of "remembering" and "forgetting" about Hitler, Nazism and the Holocaust been shaped by the post-1945 political and cultural history of the two Germanies? And in what ways have post-war German identities been constructed and re-constructed, from 1945 to the present, with reference to the "past that will not pass away"? We will begin this course by looking at some recent approaches by professional historians to the history of Nazi Germany. We will then move from the academy to the broader political and popular cultures, examining changing discussions and representations of Hitler, Nazism and the Holocaust, in post-1945 official commemorative practices, such as monuments and museums, in film, in fiction and in popular constructions of memory via oral history. We will also selectively compare German memory with representations of the Holocaust in France, Poland, Russia and Israel.

Texts

The following books are required reading for this course* : David Crew, editor, NAZISM AND GERMAN SOCIETY, 1933-1945 Omer Bartov,editor,THE HOLOCAUST.ORIGINS,IMPLEMENTATION, AFTERMATH Lawrence L. Langer, HOLOCAUST TESTIMONIES. THE RUINS OF MEMORY Mark Roseman, A PAST IN HIDING.MEMORY AND SURVIVAL IN NAZI GERMANY Robert Moeller, WAR STORIES.THE SEARCH FOR A USABLE PAST IN THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF GERMANY James Edward Young, THE TEXTURE OF MEMORY: HOLOCAUST MEMORIALS AND MEANING Barbie Zelizer, editor, VISUAL CULTURE AND THE HOLOCAUST Istvan Deak,Jan T.Gross and Tony Judt,editors, THE POLITICS OF RETRIBUTION IN EUROPE.WORLD WAR II AND ITS AFTERMATH Henry Rousso, THE VICHY SYNDROME:HISTORY AND MEMORY IN FRANCE SINCE 1944 Jan Gross, JEDWABNE Günter Grass, CRABWALK W.G. Sebald, ON THE NATURAL HISTORY OF DESTRUCTION *This may be changed by the beginning of the fall semester 2003.

back