THE HOLOCAUST

Gen Ed 1118 (Fall 2019)

Tues/Thurs 10:30-11:45
Sever 202

Professor Kevin J. Madigan Email: (kgunst@hds.harvard.edu)

Winn Professor of Ecclesiastical History Divinity Hall 215
TFs: Rachel Slutsky (renz@g.harvard.edu)
Nicholas Low (nil057@g.harvard.edu)

Office Hours: Monday, 3-5 PM, Div Hall 215, and by appointment. Please email Ms. Kristin Gunst
(kgunst@hds.harvard.edu) to schedule an appointment. The Instructor will be available for lunch most
days after class with groups of 4-5 students. Please schedule in advance with Ms. Gunst.

1We will confront the facts without reservations. We will not justify, not rationalize, not
assign God’s inscrutable will to the atrocities committed by men. We will seek the truth
and not dilute its reality with platitudes. The desire to overstate the episodes of kindness
and caring and miraculous survival is quite compelling. . . But these exceptions must not
be permitted to obscure the general rule. And for six million, death was the rule.
Rita Botwinick

The [Holocaust] is not incomprehensible; it yields its mechanisms, most of them

composed of ordinary human motivations, to meticulous analysis... Yes, the Holocaust
was unique, but it must not be cordoned off from the rest of history. ‘How could it have
happened?’ is not a rhetorical question… It is a summons to thought.
William Deresiewicz

Course Description and Aims:

Who is responsible for genocide? Through the lens of the Holocaust – perhaps the most-studied
genocide of the modern era – we will grapple with the issues of good and evil, blame and
responsibility, duty and dissent as they pertain to violence enacted at the personal and state levels.
What is the responsibility of “citizens and citizen leaders” in the face of local and global crises
brought on by genocide, refugee catastrophes, terror, neo-fascism, etc.? And how do we make
meaning out of what seems senseless? The course will address the historical background and context
of the Holocaust, competing theories about who was responsible and why, and representations of the
Holocaust in film and literature. This course satisfies the Harvard College General Education
requirement under the rubric “Histories, Societies, Individuals.” See
https://generaleducation.fas.harvard.edu/histories-societies-individuals .

CANVAS Site: https://(CANVAS).harvard.edu/courses/61309. Many readings in PDF form, organized

by week, on site at https://canvas.harvard.edu/courses/61309/assignments.

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Course Requirements:

1) Section participation. This part of your grade will include participation in section and a weekly
250-word blog post (please post to CANVAS, or response to another student’s post, on the
weekly discussion topic (due the evening before section by midnight) (20% of grade).

2) One in-class exam on 9/24 (25% of grade).

3) One short paper (6-8 pp). Topics will be discussed in section. These papers will be analytical in
nature. Due 11/17/19. (25% of grade)

4) A final research paper/project (12-15 pages) on a topic of your choice or a project of equivalent
caliber. Students should meet with their TF at least once during term to discuss and secure
approval for their projects. Due on the last day of Reading Period, 12/9, at 5 PM (30% of grade).

An Abstract of your paper should be sent to your TF no later than one month before the
paper is due (more in class).

Academic Integrity and Collaboration: Discussion and the exchange of ideas are essential to academic
work. For the writing assignments in this course, you are encouraged to consult with your classmates on
the choice of topic and for advice about picking useful sources. However, you should ensure that any
written work which you submit for evaluation is the result of your own research and writing (and your
writing alone), and that it reflects your own approach to the topic. You must also adhere to standard
citation practices in this discipline and properly cite any books, articles, websites, lectures, etc., that have
helped you with your work. You should also acknowledge anyone who provided substantial help with
your research or writing (e.g., feedback on drafts from colleagues, etc.). For help with citation usage and
formatting, please consult the Harvard Guide to Using Sources, used in Freshman Expos and which can
be found online at: http://usingsources.fas.harvard.edu.

Reading and Viewing Assignments: Reading and Viewing Assignments: Please read assigned reading
before class and section; it will be much more satisfying that way. A note about the relation of lectures
and readings: my lectures will, in places, echo, expand upon, or allude to your secondary reading. That
said, I will always want to add a “something more.” In other words, my comments are not meant merely
to reinforce (a tradition function of lectures) but to open out and to deepen. It’s therefore important for
you both to do the secondary reading and to attend, and be attentive, for lectures. You may bring up
primary sources and films for readings at any time, but we will be study those closely in section,
especially.

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Required Texts All are available for purchase at the COOP and many are available for reduced prices
online. All are on Reserve at Lamont Library.

ISBN # Author Title Publisher

9781442242289 Bergen War and Genocide ROWM/LTTFLD

9780415161442 Landau Studying the Holocaust ROUTLEDGE

9780333963456 Hochstadt Sources of the Holocaust PALGR MACM

9780547189468 Niewyk The Holocaust (4th ed.) WADSWORTH

9780142002407 Gross Neighbors PENG USA

9780679748403 Spiegelman Maus KNOPF

9780800629311 Ericksen/Heschel Betrayal AUGSBURG

9780553272536 Wiesel Night* BANTAM

9780805210606 Wiesenthal The Sunflower KNOPF

*IMPERATIVE: PURCHASE BANTAM EDITION.

For used copy prices on all required books, see end of syllabus.

Required Films

You will view privately, or with classmates, a number of documentary and feature films this term. All are
available for screening on your computer on the “Media Gallery” section of the Canvas course site at:
https://canvas.harvard.edu/courses/61309/external_tools/33983. Films may be viewed also at the
Language Center, Science Center Room B06 (hours at https://language.fas.harvard.edu/) and are on
reserve at Lamont Library. ALSO: SEE VAST STREAMING LIBRARY AT :
https://guides.library.harvard.edu/stream.

Au Revoir les Enfants (Streaming on Kanopy : https://harvard.kanopy.com/video/au-revoir-les-enfants)

Chaim Rumkowski and the Jews of Łódź
Conspiracy
Der Ewige Jude—The Eternal Jew
Europa, Europa
Killing Kastner
The Nazis: A Warning from History (available online; see below)
Night and Fog (Streaming on Kanopy: https://harvard.kanopy.com/video/night-and-fog)
The Pianist
Schindler’s List
Sophie Scholl: The Final Days
The Trial of Adolf Eichmann

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Please view assigned films before class days on which they will be discussed.
Instructor strongly—very strongly—recommends taking notes by pen[cil] and paper. See advantages of
such at: https://bit.ly/2tBXkiH and https://nyti.ms/2A16esX; and a (somewhat snarky) professorial view:
https://nyti.ms/2Mz5bZr.

Course Schedule

Part I: The War Against the Jews, 1933-1945

Week 1

Tuesday - Introduction; Why the Holocaust? The Christian Teaching of Contempt

09/3/19 Primary Sources
Readings [reading for today recommended, not
required; do view short USHMM film]
 Hochstadt, Sources of the Holocaust,
pp. 7-21
 Augustine on The Doctrine of Jewish
Witness; medieval slurs and
stereotypes; expulsions; Luther and
early modernity (Instructor
Presentation)
Secondary Sources
 Weiss, “Anti-Semitism through the
Ages” in Niewyk, The Holocaust, Part
I, pp. 12-22
 USHMM article on “Christian
Persecution of Jews over the Centuries”
(CANVAS)
 Bergen, War and Genocide,
Introduction, pp. 1-11
 Landau, Studying the Holocaust,
Introduction

Films  View: 13-minute USHMM.org film on

History of Antisemitism HERE

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Thursday - European Jewry from Enlightenment to German Unification
09/5/19 Primary Sources Secondary Sources
Readings  Hochstadt, Sources of the Holocaust,
pp. 23-28

 Clermont-Tonnerre, “Speech on
Religious Minorities” (1789)
(CANVAS)

 From Jew Hatred to Antisemitism:

USHMM article on “Racial
Antisemitism” (CANVAS)

 Browse through German

propaganda archive HERE

Films  View: Der Ewige Jude—The Eternal

Jew

Week 2

Tuesday - From National Unification to National Socialism

09/10/19 Primary Sources Secondary Sources
Readings  Antisemites’ Petition (1880) (CANVAS)  Bergen, War and Genocide, Chapter 2

 Landau, Studying the Holocaust, pp. 51-

56

 Hochstadt, Sources of the Holocaust, pp.

22-35

 Protocols of the Elders of Zion, Landau,

Studying the Holocaust, pp. 52-55.
(complete text available on CANVAS
readings for Week 2)

Films  View The Nazis: A Warning from

History, “Helped into Power” HERE

 View first ten minutes of Leni

Riefenstahl, Triumph of the Will

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 HERE

Other German Public Reaction: Instructor Remarks

For section: “Harvard’s Eugenics Era” in

Harvard Magazine (CANVAS) and, if
interested:
“Nazi Origins of White Supremacy”
(USHMM) and American Eugenics and
Hitler’s Racial Ideology (CANVAS) -
[possible paper topics]

Thursday - Anti-Jewish Policy and Legislation, 1933-1938

09/12/19 Primary Sources Secondary Sources
Readings  Hochstadt, Sources of the Holocaust,  Klemperer, I Will Bear Witness
pp. 37-55. (CANVAS: read one page for each year,
1933-1937, and all of 1938)
 Dawidowicz, “Preconditions: Hitler
Speeches and Writings” (CANVAS)  Bergen, War and Genocide, Chapter 3

 Landau, Studying the Holocaust, pp.

56-60
Films
Other German Public Reaction: Instructor Remarks

Week 3

Tuesday - Kristallnacht, War, Ghettoization, 1938-1941

09/17/19 Primary Sources Secondary Sources
Readings  Hochstadt, Sources of the Holocaust, pp.  Bergen, War and Genocide, Chapter
58-84. Concentrate on Documents 21, 24, 4
25, 27
 Landau, Studying the Holocaust, pp. 62-
64
 Continue to browse through German
propaganda archive HERE

Films  Adam Czerniakøw, Jewish Council  Europa, Europa (in light of German
Leader, Warsaw (CANVAS); view propaganda)
Hilberg on him HERE 5:00-10:30

Other German Public Reaction: Instructor Remarks

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Thursday - The Evolution of the “Final Solution,” 1941-45
09/19/19 Primary Sources
Readings  Hochstadt, Sources of the Holocaust,
skim pp. 85-253. Concentrate on
documents 27, 30, 35-37, 40-43
(especially 42, Minutes of the
Wannsee Conference), 47-49, 52, 68,
70, 72-74 carefully.
Secondary Sources
 Bergen, War and Genocide, Chapters 5-
8
 Niewyk, The Holocaust, “Chronology
of Events,” and Glossary, pp. xi-xiii

 Landau, Studying the Holocaust, pp.

32-37, 67-68, 73-75,153-58.
Films  Lødz Ghetto

 View digital reconstruction of Treblinka

HERE

 Drone footage of Auschwitz HERE

 Conspiracy
Other German Public Reaction: Instructor Remarks  Inspect map of Jewish Population
Europe 1933/2015 HERE

Week 4

Tuesday - EXAM ON MATERIALS COVERED FIRST THREE WEEKS

9/2 In addition to ID and essay questions, you will be asked to place ten of the following on a map:
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Amsterdam
Auschwitz-Birkenau
Belzec
Berlin
Black Sea
Budapest
Bug River
Chelmno
Dachau
Danube River
Danzig
East Prussia
Elbe River
General Government
Hungary
Kraków
Leningrad

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 Lithuania
Lødz
Lublin
Lwów, Baltic Sea
Majdanek
Oder River
Odessa
Prague
Riga
Sobibor
Treblinka
Ukraine
Vichy France
Vienna
Vilna
Vistula River
Warsaw
Westerbork

Thursday 9/26- Examination of Nazi Materials from Houghton and Widener Libraries

Part II: Actors

Week 5: Perpetrators

Tuesday - Hitler: Architect of Genocide?

10/1/19 Primary Sources Secondary Sources
Readings  Landau, Studying the Holocaust, pp.  Niewyk, The Holocaust, Section I on
67-68 [and in CANVAS] Origins of the Holocaust, pp. 9-56,
paying careful attention to Kershaw,
 Hitler, selections from Mein Kämpf “Hitler’s Decisive Role” (fourth
CANVAS (Secondary Sources) edition)

 Gerald Fleming, “It is the Führer’s

Wish” (CANVAS)

 Mommsen, “There Was No Führer

Order” (CANVAS)

 Browning, “Euphoria in Victory”

(CANVAS)

NB! These last 3 articles are

from Niewyk, The Holocaust,
Films  View clip of Hitler on the Annihilation
Second Edition (CANVAS)
of the Jews HERE

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Thursday - The Complexity of Motivation
10/3/19 Primary Sources Secondary Sources
Readings  Extract from Höss, Death Dealer  Niewyk, The Holocaust, Section II on
(CANVAS) Motivations of the Killers, pp. 76-85

 “Ordinary Germans” Landau, Studying  Heschel, “Does Atrocity Have a

the Holocaust, pp. 21-29 Gender?” (CANVAS)

 Testimonies of Perpetrators, Landau,

Studying the Holocaust, pp. 77-81

Week 6: Perpetrators II

Tuesday - Ordinary Men? “Following Orders”

10/8/19 Primary Sources Secondary Sources
Readings  Stanley Milgram on Obedience  Excerpt from Goldhagen, Hitler’s
(Landau, Studying the Holocaust, pp. Willing Executioners (CANVAS)
17-19) [IMPT. for section]

 If you have not previously seen,  Browning-Goldhagen Debate at

view clip on Milgram’s experiment USHMM [April 1996] (CANVAS)
HERE
 Sereny Interview of Franz Stangl, from
Into that Darkness (CANVAS)

Thursday - Primum non Nocere (First Do No Harm): “Killing as Healing”

10/10/19 Primary Sources Secondary Sources
Reading  Nazi Doctors socializing outside  Niewyk, The Holocaust, Lifton on Nazi
s Auschwitz HERE Doctors, pp. 60-76

 Landau, Studying the Holocaust, pp.  Brief USHMM article on Euthanasia

77-81 (review, especially doctor (“T4”) Killings (CANVAS)
testimony)
 Friedlander, “Opening Act,” Niewyk I

 Brief article on Mengele (CANVAS)

Films  Victims of Experiments Testify,

Nuremberg HERE

 Child Survivors of Auschwitz HERE

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Week 7: “Here There Is No Why:” The World of the Victims

Driven by thirst…I opened the window and broke off the icicle, but at once a large, heavy guard prowling
outside brutally snatched it away. “Warum?” [Why?] I asked in my poor German. ‘Hier ist kein warum’
[Here there is no why.]—Primo Levi

Tuesday – Choiceless Choice

10/15/19 Primary Sources Secondary Sources
Readings  Landau, Studying the Holocaust, pp.  Niewyk, The Holocaust pp. 101-131
19-21, 37-47 (read “The Grey Zone” for 10/22)

 “Choiceless Choice:” Landau, Studying

the Holocaust, pp. 19-21

Films  Killing Kastner

Thursday - God After Auschwitz: Representation and Elie Wiesel, Night

GUEST LECTURER: SEE https://courtneysender.com/.

Week 8: Victims: Complexities of Judgment

Tuesday - “The Grey Zone”

Provided that under the conditions of totalitarianism a person wants to remain alive, he will contribute…
to the preservation of totalitarianism: this is the simple trick of the organization.
—Imre Kertész

10/22/19 Primary Sources Secondary Sources

Readings  Hochstadt, Sources of the Holocaust,  Niewyk, The Holocaust Part III
review section VII and VIII

 Levi, “The Grey Zone” in Niewyk,

The Holocaust, pp. 115-127

 Landau, Studying the Holocaust, pp.

69-70, 75-76, 81-87
Films  Son of Saul

Thursday - Victims as Collaborators? Debating the Jewish Councils

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I would not take it upon myself to judge any Jew who was not there. The Jews who lived in safety during
the time of Hitler cannot judge their brothers who were buried and slaughtered or saved. [Those] who
did not taste hell would do best...to remain sorrowfully and humbly silent.
—David Ben Gurion, in wake of Reznso Kastner verdict (January 1958)

10/24/19 Primary Sources Secondary Sources

Readings  Speech of Chaim Rumkowski, Head of Jewish  Niewyk, The Holocaust, Part
Council, Łódź “Fathers and Mothers, Give Me III
Your Children” (September 4, 1942) in
Hochstadt, Sources of the Holocaust, pp. 183-
185

 Recommended: View Tobias Mendiez’

performance of speech HERE

Films  Chaim Rumkowski and the

Jews of Łódź

Week 9: Bystanders

The road to Auschwitz was built with hate but paved with indifference.
Ian Kershaw

Tuesday - Religious Leaders: Conscience and Connivance

10/29/19 Primary Sources
Readings  Protest, Bishop of Montauban (Aug
1942) Hochstadt, Sources of the
Holocaust, pp. 150-51
 Summi Pontificatus (1939), Speech of
Pope Pius XII, Para 19-20, “In the
fulfillment…” (https://bit.ly/30fxGgQ)
 Landau, Studying the Holocaust, pp.
43-47
Films
Secondary Sources
 Heschel, Betrayal, Chaps. 1, 3-7
 Phayer, “The Silence of Pope Pius XII”
in Niewyk, pp. 240-252
 Madigan, “What the Vatican Knew
about the Holocaust and When”
(CANVAS)
 View Au Revoir, Les Enfants with short
article on Children in the Holocaust
(CANVAS)

Thursday - Collaboration and Complicity: Jews and Gentiles in Poland

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 10/31/19 Primary Sources Secondary Sources
Readings  Jan Gross, Neighbors

 The Pain of Poland’s Past: HERE

(CANVAS)

 Niewyk, The Holocaust, Part V, pp.

177-216

Other Section this week: “Holocaust

Reflections” (CANVAS). Post on 1-2
excerpts or on The Sunflower.

 Wiesenthal, The Sunflower (short story

only; essays optional)

 Short USHMM article on Wiesenthal

and Hunt for Nazi War Criminals
(CANVAS)

 Bolsonaro, “Can the Holocaust be

Forgiven?” (NYT 13 April 2019
CANVAS)

Week 10: Resisters and Rescuers

Tuesday - Possibilities of Rescue

11/5/19 Primary Sources Secondary Sources
Readings  Anthony Eden on Bombing of  Rubinstein, “The Myth of Rescue” in
Auschwitz, Hochstadt, Sources, pp. Niewyk, The Holocaust, pp. 228-240
246-48
 Laqueur, “The Failure to Comprehend”
in Niewyk, The Holocaust, pp. 252-266

 “Why Didn’t America Bomb Auschwitz

When It Had the Chance?” (CANVAS)

Thursday - “Righteous Gentiles”: The Religious and the Secular

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 11/7/19 Primary Sources Secondary Sources
Readings  White Rose: Letters of Sophie Scholl
in Ultimate Sacrifice (CANVAS)  N. Tec, “Righteous Gentiles” in
Niewyk, The Holocaust V: 217-225

Films  View clip of Weapons of the Spirit (7

minutes) HERE

 Sophie Scholl: The Final Days

PAPER DUE TODAY BY 5 PM

Part III: Managing the Past

"The past is never dead. It's not even past." –William Faulkner, Requiem for a Nun

Week 11: Representation

Tuesday - Of Mice, Men, and Memory: Challenges of Representation Courtney Sender

11/12/19 Primary Sources Secondary Sources
Readings  Spiegelman, Maus

 Cynthia Ozick, The Shawl (CANVAS)

Thursday - Schindler: Problems and Possibilities

11/14/19 Primary Sources Secondary Sources
Readings  USHMM short article on Schindler
(CANVAS)

Films  “An Accidental Hero” (available

through Hollis HERE)
 Schindler’s List

Week 12: Justice?

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Tuesday - Nuremberg

“The wrongs which we seek to condemn and punish have been so calculated, so malignant, and so
devastating, that civilization cannot tolerate their being ignored, because it cannot survive their being
repeated.”—Robert Jackson, Opening Statement for the Prosecution, Nuremberg (November 21, 1945)

11/19/19 Primary Sources Secondary Sources

Readings  Hochstadt, Sources of the  Doctors Trial, Nuremberg (CANVAS)
Holocaust, pp. 257-269

See Harvard Law

School Nuremberg
Project
http://nuremberg.law.
harvard.edu/

Films  View Film of Camps shown at Nuremberg HERE

 View Prosecution of Medical Experiments HERE

 View Jackson, Opening Statement of Prosecution

HERE

Thursday - Eichmann in Jerusalem

11/2119 Primary Sources Secondary Sources
Readings  Eichmann Letter to President  “Banality of Evil”? *Arendt, “Eichmann in
of Israel (CANVAS) Jerusalem” (CANVAS)

 “Six Million Accusers,”  Mark Lilla, “The New Truth” (CANVAS)

Landau, Studying the
Holocaust, pp. 29-32  David Frum, “The Lies of Adolf Eichmann”
(CANVAS)

 Adam Kirsch, “Why Does ‘Eichmann in

Jerusalem’ Remain So Contentious 50 Yrs.
Later?” (CANVAS)

 “The Trial of Hannah Arendt” (CANVAS)

 Madigan on the Vatican and Nazi War

Criminals (CANVAS)

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  Evading Justice (CANVAS)
Films  The Trial of Adolf Eichmann

Week 13: Aftermath

Tuesday - Museums and Memorialization

Lecture will be given by Rachel Slutsky
11/26/19 Primary Sources Secondary Sources
Readings  David Barnouw, “Who Owns Anne  Nathan Englander, “What We Talk
Frank,” The Phenomenon of Anne About When We Talk About Anne
Frank (pp. 78-106) (CANVAS) Frank” (CANVAS)

 Peter Novick, “Not in the Best

Interests of Jewry,” The Holocaust in
American Life, (pp. 103-123)
(CANVAS)

 Instructor remarks: “The Wave”

(selection from book/film/Ron Jones
speaking)

11/28 NO CLASS THANKSGIVING HOLIDAY

Week 14: The Future

Tuesday - LESSONS AND LEGACIES

12/3/19 Primary Sources Secondary Sources
Readings  Hochstadt, Sources of  Bergen, War and Genocide, Conclusion: “Legacies of
the Holocaust, pp. 270- Atrocity,” pp. 287-310
299
 Madigan on Jewish Reaction to the Vatican Statement
 The Vatican, “We on the Holocaust (CANVAS)
Remember”
(CANVAS)  Schultheis, “Teaching the Holocaust,” HERE
(CANVAS)
Films  Interview with Holocaust Educator in Germany: HERE
(CANVAS)

Amazon Links to Required Texts (Used Options)

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War and Genocide
https://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/B01FEKU1EU

Studying the Holocaust

https://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/0415161444/ref=dp_olp_used?
ie=UTF8&condition=used

Sources of the Holocaust

https://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/0333963458/ref=dp_olp_used?
ie=UTF8&condition=used

The Holocaust (4th ed.)

https://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/054718946X/ref=dp_olp_used?
ie=UTF8&condition=used

Neighbors
https://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/0142002402/ref=dp_olp_used?
ie=UTF8&condition=used

Maus
https://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/0679748407/ref=tmm_pap_used_olp_0?
ie=UTF8&condition=used&qid=&sr=

Betrayal
https://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/0800629310/ref=tmm_pap_used_olp_sr?
ie=UTF8&condition=used&qid=&sr=

Night (BANTAM)
https://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/0553272535

The Sunflower
https://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/0805210601/ref=tmm_pap_used_olp_sr?
ie=UTF8&condition=used&qid=&sr=

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