JS 211- The Holocaust

 
JS 211- The Holocaust
Spring 2020 Professor Gillerman
Due date: Tuesday April 7 (hard copy to be submitted in class and on Blackboard by 2:00 p.m.)
 
Term Paper Assignment
 
This assignment asks you to write an 7-8 page paper on a topic of your
choice within the area of Holocaust/genocide scholarship. The paper must
articulate a question or problem, make an argument, and marshal relevant
evidence from your secondary sources to illustrate your argument.  Thus, your
essay must be thesis-driven. In addition, you need to make sure to utilize at
least four academic, peer-reviewed secondary sources that are either books or articles. An article needs to be at least ten pages in length to count for one of the four required sources. On pages 3-5 below, you will find a list of possible questions with some sources you may use, but you may also find other sources as well.  Be forewarned: there is an enormous scholarly literature on the Holocaust; finding appropriate sources for your paper will likely offer an important key to your success. You may also choose your own topic, but it must be approved by the professor in person, either after class or in office hours. Finally, your essay needs to demonstrate that you are aware of the scholarly literature and debate surrounding your topic.
 
This assignment has three steps:
 

1. Selecting a question and a minimum of four scholarly sources. On pages 3-5 on this handout is a list of topics/questions with suggested scholarly works.  If you are interested in a topic not on this list, you will need to have the approval of Professor Gillerman to pursue it. It’s important you pick a topic and question that will set you up for success.

 
All scholarly sources that you choose must meet academic standards or peer review, or have acquired recognition within academic circles.  Evaluating whether a given source meets those standards will be discussed in section, and all the suggested readings provided below meet those standards.  If you ever have any question about a source, feel free to discuss with your TA or the professor.
 

2. After identifying your question, you should locate and familiarize yourself with possible sources for the paper. You will be instructed by your T.A. to write a brief preparatory assignment to be submitted in section. Your T.A. will give you the due date and her/his exact guidelines.

3. Hard copy of the term paper is due in lecture at the beginning of class on April 7. In addition, an electronic version of the paper is due at the same time, to be submitted via blackboard. (Go to assignments, under “term paper” click on “view/complete” and upload the file.)  The paper should be 7-8 pages long, typed in standard format (i.e., standard margins, standard font size, double-spaced), and properly annotated. Make sure to choose either the MLA or Chicago style for annotation. Either is acceptable just as long as you are consistent! For technical help with your paper, please use the Writing Center on the third floor of THH.

 
Evaluation of Papers
 
Your papers will be evaluated according to:
 

• Your ability to make a clear argument
• Fluidity and clarity of writing
• Quality and fluidity of arguments and style
• Your ability to communicate your thorough acquaintance with the (at least) four academic sources that you have chosen

 
See attached writing rubric at the end of this document for greater clarification of these points.
 
Late papers will result in a loss of a part of a letter grade (from B to B-), for each day the paper is late.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
SUGGESTED TOPICS
 
Below are five paper topics with some suggested bibliographic references.  Most sources listed below can be found on Reserve at either HUC, Leavey Library or in electronic databases.  In addition to these listed sources, I have put other books and articles related to these topics on reserve. The accompanying references do not have to be the exact four sources you will use for your paper. I have put a useful resource on reserve at HUC library, which is the multi-volume series entitled The Nazi Holocaust, edited by Michael Marrus.  It is a collection of important scholarly articles published in Holocaust history and it includes short articles on most of the topics listed below.  You may reframe the question and do not need to use the exact formulation of the question for each topic, but make sure you have articulated a question and that your paper builds an argument.
 
 

1. 1. Gender, Nazism, and the Holocaust:

 
How did the experiences of men and women differ during the Holocaust?
 
Suggested Sources:

• Lisa Pine, “Gender and Holocaust Victims: A Reappraisal,” Journal of Jewish Identities 1 (2008): 121-141.
• Joan Ringelheim, “Women and the Holocaust: A Reconsideration of Research.” Different Voices: Women and the Holocaust, in eds. Carol Rittner and John K. Roth. Paul: Paragon House, 1993, pp. 373-418.
• Marion Kaplan, Between Dignity and Despair: Jewish Life in Nazi Germany.  New York: Oxford, 1998.
• Dalia Ofer and Lenore Weitzman, eds. Women in the Holocaust. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999.
• Judith Baumel, Double Jeopardy: Gender and the Holocaust. London and Portland: Vallentine Mitchell, 1998.
• Jane Caplan, “Gender and the Concentration Camps,” in eds. Jane Caplan and Nikolaus Wachsmann, Concentration Camps in Nazi Germany. The New Histories. New York: Routledge, 2010, pp.82-107.
• Carol Rittner and John Roth, Rape: Weapon of War and Genocide. St. Paul: Paragon House, 2012.

2. American Eugenics:

 
How did eugenics in the American context address specifically American political, social, racial, and class concerns?
 
Suggested Sources:

• Garland E. Allen, “The Ideology of Elimination: American and German Eugenics, 1900-1945,”Medicine and Medical Ethics in Nazi Germany : Origins, Practices, Legacies, in eds. Francis R. Nicosia and Jonathan Huener. New York: Berghahn Books, 2002, 13-39.
• Wendy Kline, “Eugenics in the United States,”in The Oxford Handbook of the History of Eugenics. Oxford: Oxford U Press, 2010, pp. 511-522.
• Daniel Kevles, In the Name of Eugenics: Genetics and the Uses of Human Heredity. Cambridge: Harvard U Press, 1995.
• Garland E. Allen, “The Misuse of Biological Hierarchies: the American Eugenics Movement, 1900-1940,” in History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences 5, No. 2 (1983): 105-128.
• Martin Pernick, The Black Stork: Eugenics and the Death of “Defective” Babies in American Medicine and Motion Pictures Since 1915. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996.
• Susan Bachrach, Deadly Medicine : Creating the Master Race. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, 2004.
• Steven Selden, “Transforming Better Babies into Fitter Families: Archival Resource and the History of the American Eugenics Movement 1908-1930,” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 149 no. 2 2005: 199-225.
• Philip R. Reilly, The Surgical Solution: A History of Involuntary Sterilization in the United States. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991.
• Alexandra Stern, Eugenic Nation: Faults and Frontiers of Better Breeding in Modern America. Berkeley: UC Press, 2005.

3. The Question of Resistance among European Jews:

 
How would you define Jewish resistance during the Holocaust? How might resistance change over time?
 
Suggested Sources:

• Yehuda Bauer. “Forms of Jewish Resistance.”  Michael Marrus The Nazi Holocaust Vol. 7. Westport, CT: Meckler, 1989, pp. 34-48. (On Reserve at HUC Library)
• Yehuda Bauer, Rethinking the Holocaust. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001. (two chapters on resistance)
• Michael Marrus, “Jewish Resistance to the Holocaust,” Journal of Contemporary History, 30 (1995): 83-110.
• Patrick Henry, Jewish Resistance against the Nazis. Washington: The Catholic University of America Press, 2014.
• Ruby Rohrlich, Resisting the Holocaust. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 1998.
• Rob Rozett, “Jewish Resistance” in ed. Dan Stone, The Historiography of the Holocaust. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004, pp. 341-363.
• Arnold Paucker and Konrad Kwiet, “’Jewish Leadership and Jewish Resistance,’”in David Cesarani, ed., Holocaust: Critical Concepts in Historical Studies, New York: Routledge, 2004, vol. 4, 13-31. (Germany)
• Victoria Khiterer and Abigail S. Gruber, eds. Holocaust Resistance in Europe and America. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2017.
• David Engel, Yitzhak Mais, Eva Fogelman, eds., Daring to Resist: Jewish Defiance in the Holocaust. New York: Museum of Jewish Heritage, 2007.
• Shmuel Krakowski, War of the Doomed: Jewish Armed Resistance in Poland 1942-1944. Teaneck, New Jersey, Holmes and Meier, 1984. (Poland)
• Wolf Gruner and Thomas Pegelow Kaplan, eds., Resisting Persecution. Jews and their Petitions during the Holocaust. New York: Berghahn Books, 2019.

4. U.S. Response to the Holocaust:

 
Scholars have taken a variety of different positions on assessing the response of the United States to the Holocaust.  Based on your analysis of at least two competing interpretations, how would you characterize the United States response to the Holocaust?
 
Suggested Sources:

• Richard Breitman and Allan J. Lichtman, FDR and the Jews. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2013.
• Richard Breitman and Alan Kraut, American Refugee Policy and European Jewry, 1933-1945. Bloomington: University of Indiana Press, 1987.
• D. Rubinstein, The Myth of Rescue. New York: Routledge, 1997.
• Peter Novick, The Holocaust in American Life. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1999.
• Yehuda Bauer, “The Holocaust, America, and American Jewry,” Israel Journal of Foreign Affairs, Vol 6 no.1, 2012.
• David Wyman, The Abandonment of the Jews. America and the Holocaust. New York: Pantheon Books, 1984.
• Henry Feingold, The Politics of Rescue: The Roosevelt Administration and the Holocaust, 1938-1945. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, 1980.

5. Nazi Medicine:

 
What role did doctors play in the Nazi regime and in developing and carrying out its murderous policies?
 
Suggested Sources:

• Robert Proctor, Racial Hygiene: Medicine under the Nazis. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1988.
• George Annas, Michael Grodin, eds. The Nazi Doctors and the Nuremburg Code: Human Rights in Experimentation. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992.
• Michael Kater, Doctors Under Hitler. Chapel Hill: UNC Press, 1989.
• Robert J. Lifton, Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide. New York: Basic Books, 1986.
• Benno Muller-Hill, Murderous Science: Elimination by Scientific Selection of Jews, Gypsies and Others, Germany 1933-1945. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988.
• Goetz Aly, Cleansing the Fatherland: Nazi Medicine and Racial Hygiene. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994.
• Francis Nicosia and Jonathan Huener, eds. Medicine and Medical Ethics yin Nazi Germany : Origins, Practices, Legacies.  New York: Berghahn 2002.
• Michael Burleigh, “Racism as social policy: The Nazi ‘euthanasia’ programme, 1939-1945.” Ethnic and Racial Studies 14 (1991): 453-473.

6. Understanding Human Behavior: Why Rescue?

 
Scholars across disciplines have sought to understand what motivated a minority of Europeans to extend life-saving assistance to Jews in need. Scholars have nevertheless come at this question from a variety of perspectives.  How have scholars sought to explain the behaviors and motivations of people who made the decision to rescue Jews?
 
Suggested Sources:

• David Scrase, Wolfgang Mieder, and Katherine Quimby Johnson, eds. Making a Difference: Rescue and Assistance during the Holocaust. Burlington: University of Vermont, 2004.
• Nechama Tec, When Light Pierced the Darkness: Christian Rescue of Jews in Nazi-Occupied Poland. New York: Oxford University Press, 1986.
• Sam Oliner and Pearl Oliner, The Altruistic Personality: Rescuers of Jews in Nazi Europe. New York: Free Press, 1988.
• Eva Fogelman, Conscience and Courage: Rescuers of Jews during the Holocaust. New York: Anchor Books, 1994.
• Federico Varese, and Meir Yaish, “The Importance of Being Asked. The Rescue of Jews in Nazi Europe,” Rationality and Society 12 3 (August 2000): 307-334.
• Burton Raffel and Alexandra H. Olsen, Saving the Forsaken: Religious Culture and the Rescue of Jews in Nazi Europe. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004.
• Rescue Attempts during the Holocaust: Proceedings of the Second Yad Vashem International Historical Conference. Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 1974. (collected articles)

 
Not all the books listed here are at both libraries.  You will have to check the library catalogues to determine which library has the book or article you are looking for.  HUC’s library catalogue can be located at www.huc.edu/library
HUC library hours are Monday-Thursday: 8:30am – 5pm, Friday: 8:30am – 2:30pm, weekends closed.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

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