In this course, we will examine the complex and troubling history of one of the 20th century’s
greatest genocides: The Holocaust. HIEU 3692 will cover the origins of antisemitism, the Nazi
rise to power, and the unfolding of their genocidal project against the Jews as well as other
targeted groups in addition to the explore responses of and the choices made by perpetrators. We
will also look at collaboration, the search for justice, and the memory of the Holocaust. Through
primary sources, film, literature, and testimony, we will approach some of the most difficult
questions of the human condition: why do we commit such atrocities against each other? How
do societies become complicit in genocide? Why do some of us participate, some do nothing,
and some resist? What are the possible explanations for these different reactions? How do
individuals and communities survive and resist in the face of the horrors of genocide?

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