Instructor:   Douglas T. McGetchin, Ph.D.
Time:  MWF, 10 to 10:50 AM
Location: Student Services 2532
Office:  Adams Humanities 4197
Office Hours: Wednesday 11 AM to 12 PM or by appointment
Phone:  (619) 594-7000 during office hours only; otherwise, contact via email
Email:  [email protected]

 Course Description

This course analyzes the Nazi German campaign of extermination during the Second World War that resulted in the deaths of millions of Jews and other victims.  We will be examining many difficult questions about these horrific events.  We will examine the Christian and racial Anti-Semitic background in Europe and how Hitler and the National Socialist movement was able to emerge as politically powerful in Germany during the 1920s and 1930s, and to what degree they reflected the popular will of the German people.  We will then investigate the implementation of the “Final Solution,” how exactly the killing was carried out, including the motivations and pressures upon the perpetrators.  Next we will examine the responses by Jews and others both in German-occupied Europe and by the Allies.  Finally we explore the legacy of the Holocaust, how the perpetrators were (or were not) punished after the war, and the continuing controversies about Holocaust interpretation.

 Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel has argued that the Holocaust is inexplicable, mysterious, and essentially beyond rational comprehension.  The historian Yehuda Bauer (of Hebrew University) counters that the Holocaust can be examined.  The veil that separates us from these events can be balanced with a motivation to “never forget,” informed with the tools of analytical historical inquiry.  I expect all of us in this course to approach this material from a variety of perspectives with clear reasoning and historically documented arguments.  Your ability to express yourself precisely and thoughtfully when contributing to the class will be an important element in your course grade, whether in discussions, debates, exams, papers, or emails.

 Course Requirements

 You can meet the requirements for this course in several ways.  Exams, debates, and book reports are each worth one third of your final grade.  A research paper is worth two-thirds of your final grade.  You must pick combinations that are not on the same topic.

 Acceptable Options
 Three Exams
 Two Exams, Book Report
 Exam, Two Book Reports
 Exam, Research Paper
 Debate, Book Report, Exam
 Debate, Research Paper
 Exam, Two Debates

 Exams (each 1/3 of final grade).  Examinations will take place in class and will be written in blank blue books.   You will not have access to notes, course readings, or other sources.  Format will be identification and essays.  I expect you to answer questions directly, taking a definite position and supporting your thesis by citing specific evidence from reading and class.  If you are opting to participate in a debate or write a book report in lieu of an exam, you are not required to attend class the day an examination is given; it will last the entire class time.

 Debates (each 1/3 of final grade).  Debaters will present a 10-15 minute argument in support of one side or the other of the topic.  Time limits will be enforced.  Debaters should be prepared to respond to each other’s arguments and to questions from the audience.  I hope that the entire class will be involved in vigorously examining the issue up for discussion that day, and I encourage everyone to voice their questions for the debaters.
If you decide to become a debater, I will give you direction for finding additional readings to help you prepare for your debate.  Prepare a one-page outline to help me and the other debaters follow your arguments.  You will be graded on the clarity of your arguments and the relevance of the evidence you cite in support of it.
 If you are interested in debating, fill out and turn in a debate preference sheet (the last page of this syllabus) by the end of the second week of class (Sept 13).  The first debaters I want to confirm by the end of the first week of class (Sept 6).

 Book Reports (each 1/3 of final grade) 5-6 pages.  Must be approved by Oct 30, and is due Dec 6.  If you plan on doing two book reports, I recommend turning one in earlier in the quarter (at the latest, early November) so you can get some feedback and improve your second report.  You may not do a report on one of the assigned readings for the course or on memoirs.  Your report should be on a scholarly study of the Holocaust.
 The first half of your report should provide a clear overview of the book’s thesis and evidence.  In the second half, provide a critical analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of the book’s interpretation of the Holocaust considering what you have learned in the course readings and lectures.
I expect your writing to be clear and grammatically correct.  The font should be 10 or 12 point, double-spaced.  Footnote your sources and do not use lengthy quotations.  Write using your own words and avoid close paraphrasing.  Plagiarism will result in automatic failure of the paper and possibly the course (see “academic integrity,” below).

 Research Paper (2/3 of final grade) 12-15 pages.  This paper will be based on a minimum of three outside sources beyond the course readings.  I expect an analytical essay that goes beyond merely a descriptive narrative.  You should evaluate the interpretive debates concerning the subject you choose and give your reasons for supporting one interpretation over another.  Have a thesis, a central argument that you are making in the paper.
 I expect your writing to be clear and grammatically correct.  The font should be 10 or 12 point, double-spaced.  Footnote your sources and do not use lengthy quotations.  Write using your own words and avoid close paraphrasing.  Plagiarism will result in automatic failure of the paper and possibly the course (see “academic integrity,” below).

 Extensions and late papers: Extensions and incompletes without a reduction of your grade will be granted only in cases of documented illness or major personal crises such as deaths in your immediate family.  Assignments turned in late lose 1/3 of a grade per day.

Academic Integrity

It is your responsibility to know and observe all the SDSU rules concerning academic integrity and plagiarism.  You should familiarize yourself with 41301, Title 5, California Code of Regulations.  See www.sa.sdsu.edu/judicial/judicial_41301.html.  Any student found to have committed a substantial violation of the university rules concerning academic integrity will fail the entire course.
One of my chief responsibilities is to help you produce first-rate academic work that reflects your own original thinking about the course themes and material.  If you have any questions whatsoever about what constitutes plagiarism, how to properly credit the work and ideas of others, how to evaluate sources for quality and reliability, and so forth, please feel free to see me to discuss the matter.

 Attendance

 I expect you to attend most of the lectures in this class.  You may miss five class meetings, but every additional absence will result in a 1/3 grade reduction to your course grade, unless it is verified by a documented illness or major personal crisis.  If you have perfect attendance you will receive extra credit of 1/3 of a grade.

Course Readings

Books are available at the Aztec Bookstore and KB Books.  All readings are required.  I have divided the readings so that there will be an average of 30 to 40 pages of reading due each class meeting.  Reading the material before the class will allow you to get more out of our discussion and contribute your own ideas more intelligently.  Stay up with the reading!

1. Christopher Browning, Ordinary Men (New York: HarperPerennial, 1992).
2. Robert Gellately, Backing Hitler (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001).
3. Marion Kaplan, Between Dignity and Despair (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998).
4. Joseph R. Mitchell, Helen Buss Mitchell, The Holocaust: Readings and Interpretations
(United States: McGraw Hill College Division, 2001).
5. Elie Wiesel, Night (New York, Bantam, 1982).

A Short List of Holocaust Books

 The following works are pre-approved for a book report, and may also prove useful for the research paper, should you choose that option.  The literature on the Holocaust and German history is vast and you are by no means limited to these works.  However, I must approve any other work you choose for the book report and I recommend you first clear with me the books you use for your research paper.

Goetz Aly, The Final Solution
Hannah Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil
Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism
Yehuda Bauer, A History of the Holocaust
Wolfgang Benz, The Holocaust: A German Historian Examines the Genocide
Michael Berenbaum, The Holocaust and History
Michael Berenbaum, The World Must Know
Christopher Browning, Nazi Policy, Jewish Workers, German Killers
Christopher Browning, The Path to Genocide
Alan Bullock, Hitler: A Study in Tyranny
Michael Burleigh/Wolfgang Wipperman, The Racial State
Inga Clendinnen, Reading the Holcaust
Dan Cohn-Sherbok, Understanding the Holocaust
John Cornwell, Hitler’s Pope: The Secret History of Pius XII
Lucy Dawidowicz, The War Against the Jews
Deborah Dwork and Jan van Pelt, Auschwitz
David Engel, The Holocaust: The Third Reich and the Jews
Norman Finkelstein, The Holocaust Industry
Klaus Fischer, The History of an Obsession
Eva Fogelman, Conscience and Courage
Henry Friedlaner, The Origins of Nazi Genocide
Saul Friedlander, Nazi Germany and the Jews (1933-1939)
Daniel Goldhagen, Hitler’s Willing Executioners
Martin Gilbert, The Holocaust
Yisrael Gutman, Anatomy of Death Camp Auschwitz
Philip Hallie, Lest Innocent Blood Be Shed
Ulrich Herbert, National Socialist Extermination Policies
Raul Hilberg, The Destruction of the European Jews
Steven Katz, The Holocaust in Historical Context
Lawrence Langer, Holocaust Testimonies: The Ruins of Memory
Nora Levin, The Holocaust
Guenter Lewy, The Nazi Persecution of the Gypsies
Deborah Lipstadt, Denying the Holocaust
Charles Maier, The Unmasterable Past
Michael Marrus, The Holocaust in History
Michael Marrus, The Nuremberg War Crimes Trial 1945-46: A Documentary History
George Mosse, The Nationalization of the Masses
Donald Niewyk, The Holocaust (second edition)
Peter Novick, The Holocaust in American Life
Sam and Pearl Oliner, The Altruistic Personality
Robert Proctor, The Nazi War on Cancer
Gerald Reitlinger, The SS, Alibi of a Nation, 1922-1945
Bryan Rigg, Hitler’s Jewish Soldiers
Ruby Rohrlich, Resisting the Holocaust
John Roth/Richard Rubenstein, Approaches to Auschwitz
Richard Rubenstein, The Cunning of History
Michael Shermer and Alex Grobman, Denying History
John Weiss, Ideology of Death
David Wyman, The Abandonment of the Jews
David Wyman, The World Reacts to the Holocaust
Leni Yahil, The Holocaust: The Fate of European Jews
James Young, The Texture of Memory

Extra Credit

To gain an extra credit of 1/3 of a grade to your final grade, you can attend an approved outside lecture or watch an approved movie (including those in the video collection below), and then write a four page critical review, relating it to issues raised in the course lectures and readings.  The extra credit assignment is due no later than the last day of class (Dec 13).

The Lipinsky Institute for Judaic Studies
The New Perspectives in Judaic Studies Lecture Series, Fall 2002

Except for Nov 10th, Lectures are on Wednesdays at 3:00 PM at 100 Nasatir Hall, SDSU Campus
For further Information, call 594-5538

Sept. 18 “Jewish Women in Soviet Prisons and Labor Camps” Veronica Shapovalov, SDSU.

Sept.25  AL AND NORMA COOPER LECTURE ON MODERN JEWISH POLITICS
“Senator Jacob Javits and the Campaign to Save Soviet Jewry,”
Arlene Lazarowitz, CSU-Long Beach

Oct. 2   DORSHA WALLMAN LECTURE IN MODERN TORAH INTERPRETATION
“Rejoicing in the Torah: Historical and Personal Reflections,”
Irving Alan Sparks, SDSU.

Oct. 9 “Klezmer: The History, the Music,The Folklore,”
Yale Strom, Author, Filmmaker, Musician.

Oct.16  DORSHA WALLMAN LECTURE IN MODERN TORAH INTERPRETATION
“Torah to Talmud: The Evolution of Israelite Law,”
Risa Levitt-Kohn, SDSU.

Oct.23 “Growing Up Jewish in Post-Holocaust Germany,”
Lynn Rapaport, Pomona College.

Oct.30 “Is Writing as a Daughter of Survivors Different? The Holocaust as Personal Explanation,”
Esther Fuchs, University of Arizona

Nov.6  ABRAHAM NASATIR LECTURE IN AMERICAN JEWISH HISTORY
“The Presidents of the United States and the Jews,”
Rabbi David Dalin

ANNUAL ROBERT SIEGEL MEMORIAL LECTURE
Nov.10  1:30 PM    San Diego Jewish Book Fair   JCC-La Jolla
“The Shabbat Elevator and Other Sabbath Subterfuges,”
Alan Dundes, UC-Berkeley
 Nov.13 “From Anti-Judaism to Anti-Semitism, ”
Lawrence Baron, SDSU.

Nov.20  “Jewish Jokes and Sigmund Freud,”
Maggie Jaffe, SDSU.
 

Jewish Heritage Video Collection
http://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/dept/lipinsky/JHVC2.html
The Lipinsky Institute for Judaic Studies maintains a collection of nearly 200 films and television programs dealing with various aspects of Jewish life.   In addition to many documentaries, the collection contains famous feature films.  The videos are housed in Love Library and available for check out for home viewing, classroom use, and university outreach programming.

An Act of Faith
The Attic: The Hiding of Anne Frank
Au Revoir, Les Enfants
The Boat is Full
Border Street
Camera of My Family
Danzig, 1939
The Devil Is a Gentleman
The Diary of Anne Frank
Enemies, A Love Story
Europa, Europa
Facing Hate
Genocide
Good Evening, Mr. Wallenberg
Judgment at Nuremberg
Kitty: A Return to Auschwitz
Lodz Ghetto
Music Box
Night and Fog
Now...After All These Years
The Oppermanns
A Painful Reminder
Partisans of Vilna
The Pawnbroker
Schindler
Schindler's List
Shoah
The Shop on Main Street
So Many Miracles
Swing Kids
Terezin Diary
Transport from Paradise
Trial at Nuremberg
The Wannsee Conference
Warsaw Ghetto Uprising
Weapons of the Spirit
Who Shall Live and Who Shall Die?
Witnesses to the Holocaust: The Trial of Adolf Eichmann

 Calendar and Assignments

I. The Setting in Nazi Germany

Sept 4 (Wed)  1. Introduction: Issues in Studying the Holocaust
 Mitchell, 1-39
Sept 6 (Fri)  2. Anti-Semitism in European History
    DUE: debate preference sheet (if interested in the first debate)
Mitchell, 40-54, 76-96
Sept 9 (Mon)  3. Legacy of Violence: World War One and Weimar Germany
    Mitchell, 55-75
Sept 11 (Wed)  4. Abandoning the Weimar Republic
    Gellately, 1-33
Sept 13 (Fri)  5. The Nazi Police State
    DUE: debate preference sheet (if you are interested in debating)
    Gellately, 34-69
Sept 16 (Mon)  6. Social Ostracism
    DEBATE: Why did most Germans support the Nazi Regime?       Gellately, 90-120
Sept 18 (Wed)  7. Persecution of the Jews in Germany
    Kaplan, 3-31
Sept 20 (Fri)  8. Jewish Daily Life in Nazi Germany
    Kaplan, 32-73
Sept 23 (Mon)  9. The Nuremberg Laws, “Mixed” Blood, and Jewish Children
Kaplan, 74-118
Sept 25 (Wed)  10. Kristallnacht and Jewish Persecution
DEBATE: Why didn’t more Jews emigrate from Germany?
   Gellately, 121-136; Kaplan, 119-144
Sept 27 (Fri)  11. The Outbreak of War and the Role of the Military
   Gellately, 70-89; Mitchell, 132-154
Sept 30 (Mon)  12. War and the Jews
   Gellately, 136-150; Kaplan, 145-172
Oct 2 (Wed)  13. Foreign Workers
    Gellately, 151-182
Oct 4 (Fri)  14. Discipline on the German Home Front
    Gellately, 183-223
Oct 7 (Mon)  FIRST EXAM

II. The Final Solution: Deportation and Killing Operations

Oct 9 (Wed)  15. Nazi Leadership and Bureaucracy
    Mitchell, 97-131
Oct 11 (Fri)  16. Big Business and Ordinary Citizens
    Mitchell, 155-192
Oct 14 (Mon)  17. Forced Labor and the Ghettos
   Kaplan, 173-200
Oct 16 (Wed)  18. Occupation and the Order Police
   Browning, 1-37
Oct 18 (Fri)  19. Mobile Killing Units
Browning, 38-87
Oct 21 (Mon)  20. Forced Deportation, “Jew Hunts,” and Anti-Partisan Warfare
    Browning, 88-142
Oct 23 (Wed)  21. Explaining the Killers: Police Battalion 101 after the War
    DEBATE: Were Perpetrators “Willing Executioners” or Ordinary Germans?
  Browning, 143-192
Oct 25 (Fri)  22. Deportation to the Death Camps
    Wiesel, 1-25
Oct 28 (Mon)  23. Survival in Auschwitz
    Wiesel, 26-62
Oct 30 (Wed)  24. Assembly Line of Death
    DUE: Approval of Book Report
    Wiesel, 63-80
Nov 1 (Fri)  25. Death Marches
Wiesel, 81-109

III. Responses to the Camps: Dehumanization and Resistance

Nov 4 (Mon)  26. Hiding: Life Underground
Kaplan, 201-237
Nov 6 (Wed)  27. Victimization of Handicapped and Jews
    Mitchell, 193-217
Nov 8 (Fri)  28. Victimization of Gypsies and Homosexuals
Mitchell, 218-253
Nov 11 (Mon)  29. Resistance
    Mitchell, 254-270
Nov 13 (Wed)   30. Rescue Efforts
    Mitchell, 271-285
Nov 15 (Fri)  31. Papal Actions
    Mitchell, 286-338
Nov 18 (Mon)  32. Allied Response
    DEBATE: How justified were the Allies and the Pope?
    Mitchell, 339-362
Nov 20 (Wed)  SECOND EXAM
Nov 22 (Fri)  No class; Happy Thanksgiving

   IV. Aftermath

Nov 25 (Mon)  33. “Gehorsam bis zum Tod” (Loyal until Death): Reich’s End
 Gellately, 224-264
Nov 27 (Wed)  34. Gender as a Holocaust Issue
    Mitchell, 363-385
Nov 29 (Fri)  35. Faith After Auschwitz
    Mitchell, 410-447
Dec 2 (Mon)  36. The Nuremberg and Eichmann Trials
    Mitchell, 448-478
Dec 4 (Wed)  37. Reparations
    DEBATE: Is justice being served with reparation payments?
Mitchell, 479-502
Dec 6 (Fri)  38. Holocaust Denial and the “Holocaust Industry”
    DUE: Book reports
Mitchell, 503-524
Dec 9 (Mon)  39. Survivors and American Appropriation of the Holocaust
    Mitchell, 525-541
Dec 11 (Wed)  40. the Legacy of the Holocaust in the 21st Century
    Mitchell, 542-560
Dec 13 (Fri)  41. Review/Conclusion
DUE: Research paper and extra credit

Dec 21 (Fri)  FINAL EXAM, 8-10 AM

  Debate Participation Sheet

If you would like to participate in a debate (which counts for 1/3 of your course grade), indicate your first, second, and third choices below.
 

________Sept 16 (Mon) DEBATE: Why did most Germans support the Nazi Regime?
 

________Sept 25 (Wed) DEBATE: Why didn’t more Jews emigrate from Germany?
 

________Oct 23 (Wed) DEBATE: Were Perpetrators “Willing Executioners” or Ordinary Germans?  To what degree does anti-Semitism explain participation in the Holocaust?
 

________Nov 18 (Mon) DEBATE: How justified were the Allies and the Pope?
 

________Dec 4 (Wed) DEBATE: Is justice being served with reparation payments?