Mount Senario College
Syllabus for History 295: The Holocaust (Major Holocaust Autobiographies), Spring Quarter 2001

Peter R. Erspamer (e-mail: perspamer@yahoo.com)

Required Texts:

Elie Wiesel, Night (New York: Bantam, 1958)

Primo Levi, Survival in Auschwitz (New York: Collier, 1993)

Edith Bruck, Who Loves You Like This (Philadelphia: Paul Dry, 2001)

Recommended Texts:

Jehuda Reinharz and Paul Mendes-Flohr, The Jew in the Modern World, 2nd Edition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995)

Judy Cohen, Women and the Holocaust Website, (www.interlog.com/~mighty)

Course Description: Although many excellent academic and popular histories of the Holocaust have been written, they often fail to convey the emotional and subjective dimensions of this catastrophic manifestation of a state terrorizing its people.
These emotional and subjective dimensions are best conveyed through the autobiographies of Holocaust survivors and other survivors of the Nazi era. We will examine both the book and film versions of some of this testimony with the goal of developing a better appreciation for the need to develop and maintain a society which respects ethnic and religious diversity and fundamental human rights.

Course Topics:

Week 1: Course Expectations, Organizational Matters, Historical Background: European Jews Between Emancipation and Destruction, 1780-1920, Nazis on the Horizon (the 1920s), The Terroristic Dictatorship in Germany (1930s), Establishment of the First Concentration Camps (the 1930s), Implementation of the Final Solution (the 1940s)

Week 2: Discussion of Elie Wiesel's Night; its value as historical eyewitness testimony of the Holocaust; importance of Elie Wiesel's relationship to his father: how the courage and support of his father helps him to survive; Wiesel's autobiography as a "Kaddish" for his father, Chlomo Wiesel.

Week 3: Position Paper on Elie Wiesel's Night due. Discussion of Primo Levi's Survival in Auschwitz, pp. 9-71; Situation of young professional and resistance fighter who is deported to Auschwitz; Levi's Philosophical Reflections on how the Hope for Survival continues in the most unlikely places; Showing and Discussion of 1955 French documentary, Night and Fog.

Week 4: Continuing discussion of Primo Levi; his professional background as a chemist and how it helps him survive Auschwitz, read pp. 71-123; Discussion of Emanuel Ringelblum's Last Letter from Warsaw (March 1, 1944); Discussion of Franzi Epstein's "Inside Auschwitz: A Memoir" (ca. 1970)

Week 5: Conclude discussion of Primo Levi; clever thievery and amoral behavior and how it helps people survive; Rescue (pp. 123-175). Position Paper on Primo Levi due.

Week 6: Begin discussion of Edith Bruck's Who Loves You Like This, pp. 1-28; Edith's childhood in an impoverished Jewish family in Hungary

Week 7: Continuing discussion of Edith Bruck, pp. 35-74. Experiences in Dachau, Auschwitz, and Bergen-Belsen as a twelve-year-old child

Week 8: Continuing Discussion of Edith Bruck, pp. 74-135. Edith's difficulties in readjusting to normal life after her liberation from the concentration camps; Harsh realities confronting the teen-aged immigrant to Israel; Decision to leave Israel and settle in Italy; Wrap-up discussion on the Holocaust; Distribution of topics for take-home final.