HIST 50: History of the Holocaust

Christopher Browning

This course will examine the Holocaust as a central historical event in western history. It begins with an examination of the nature and evolution of antisemitism over 1900 years, with special emphases on medieval religious antisemitism and then the emergence of modern antisemitism in the context of racism, Jewish emancipation, and modernization in the last half of the 19th century. Next, it will examine the nature of fascism and the rise of the Nazi dictatorship. A detailed study of the evolution of Nazi Jewish policy, culminating in the Final Solution, will be followed by a look at the perpetrators. The experience of the victims will be studied through two exceptional memoirs, with special attention given to the dilemmas of the Jewish councils and Jewish resistance and life and death in the ghettos and camps. A look at the local particularities of the Holocaust in five select countries (Poland, France, Hungary, Romania, and Italy) will be followed by an examination of the reaction of the Christian Churches and the Allies and the exceptional behavior of a few rescuers.