Borns Jewish Studies Program

The Holocaust has been memorialized through diaries, memoirs, film, monuments and museums. Yet our image often bears little resemblance to reality. As monstrously evil as the Holocaust was, we will not understand it by simply seeing it as the product of "evil men." By-standing and collaboration were often as important as signing documents and pulling triggers. The Holocaust drew on wider ideas and policies that were not restricted to Hitler or to Germany. Nor will we understand the victims if we simply see them as passively led to slaughter. They evaded, resisted, collaborated and sought to maintain a semblance of life to the end. This course looks at the origins, implementation, and consequences of this most seminal of 20th century genocides.