CHIST 3315 Nazi Germany and the Holocaust: Power & Inequity
This course examines power and inequity through the history of Nazi Germany and the Holocaust. The mass murder of 6 million Jews in the heart of Europe during World War II, and the decades-long attempt to understand how and why this took place, has had profound political, cultural, and philosophical consequences in Germany and the whole of the western world. We will examine the relationship between Nazi antisemitism and broader European discrimination against Jews; how the course of the Second World War affected the “twisted road” to the gas chambers in Auschwitz; why ordinary Germans, Poles, and other Europeans participated in mass murder; and why the international community didn’t do more to stop the genocide. As we search for answers to these difficult questions, we will strive not only to understand the Holocaust as a seminal event in the history of Europe, but also to come to a deeper understanding of our own humanity.
Prerequisite
CLITR 1100, or one 1000- or 2000-level CHUMS or CHIST course