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Module Catalogue

HI31Z-30 The Holocaust: An Integrative History

Department
History
Level
Undergraduate Level 3
Module leader
Anna Hajkova
Credit value
30
Module duration
23 weeks
Assessment
100% coursework
Study location
University of Warwick main campus, Coventry

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Introductory description

This undergraduate final-year module introduces students to Nazi Germany’s project to murder Europe’s Jews and other minorities during the Second World War. The primary focus is to study these genocides and to deepen understanding of events and experiences, as well as to introduce students to different scholarly interpretations and themes. The other goal of this module is to study the origins and implementation of the Holocaust from the contrasting perspectives of perpetrators, bystanders, and victims.

Module web page

Module aims

We will focus on the effect of historical events on individuals, but also how individuals made sense of and reacted to these events. Moreover, this module considers how violence and trauma are narrated, remembered, and reflected in film and literature. Finally, this module provides a friendly yet challenging forum for independent thinking, discussing, and analytic reading and writing.

Outline syllabus

This is an indicative module outline only to give an indication of the sort of topics that may be covered. Actual sessions held may differ.

  1. Introduction: What was the Holocaust and why does one study it?
  2. Antisemitism and Jews and Gentiles in Nazi Germany
  3. Emigration and refugees
  4. No seminar
  5. Persecution of social outsiders, Sinti and Roma, and murder of the disabled
  6. Reading week
  7. Medicine
  8. Operation Barbarossa, barbarization of warfare, and the emergence of the Final Solution
  9. The local populations and persecution of Jews
  10. Field trip to London
  11. Jewish Councils
  12. Ghettos and everyday life
  13. Sexual violence: Stories and Silences
  14. Prisoner society in the camps
  15. Perpetrators and guards
  16. Reading week
  17. Resistance
  18. Mixed marriages and people with mixed background
  19. Persecution of homosexuals
  20. Going into hiding
  21. Artistic representation: Film
  22. Artistic representation: Literature
  23. Revision session

Learning outcomes

By the end of the module, students should be able to:

  • Demonstrate a systematic knowledge and understanding of the origins and implementation of the Holocaust from the contrasting perspectives of perpetrators, bystanders, and victims.
  • Critically analyse and evaluate a broad range of primary sources relating to the history of the Holocaust and how violence and trauma are narrated, remembered, and reflected in film and literature.
  • Effectively communicate ideas, and make informed, coherent and persuasive arguments, relating to key themes and debates within the history of the Holocaust.
  • Critically review and consolidate theoretical, methodological, and historiographical ideas relating to key themes and debates within the history of the Holocaust.

Indicative reading list

  • Doris Bergen, War and Genocide: A Concise History of the Holocaust (e-book and ordered in the Uni bookshop)
  • Christopher Browning, Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland
  • Jan Gross, Neighbors: The Destruction of the Jewish Community in Jedwabne Poland (ordered in the Uni bookshop)
  • Marion Kaplan, Between Dignity and Despair: Jewish Life in Nazi Germany
  • Ruth Klüger, Landscapes of Memory: A Holocaust Girlhood Remembered (alternatively titled Still Alive)
  • Victor Klemperer, I Will Bear Witness: A Diary of the Nazi Years, 1933-1945

View reading list on Talis Aspire

Subject specific skills

See learning outcomes.

Transferable skills

See learning outcomes.

Study time

Type Required
Seminars 18 sessions of 2 hours (12%)
Tutorials 4 sessions of 1 hour (1%)
External visits 1 session of 6 hours (2%)
Private study 254 hours (85%)
Total 300 hours

Private study description

History modules require students to undertake extensive independent research and reading to prepare for seminars and assessments. As a rough guide, students will be expected to read and prepare to comment on three substantial texts (articles or book chapters) for each seminar taking approximately 3 hours. Each assessment requires independent research, reading around 6-10 texts and writing and presenting the outcomes of this preparation in an essay, review, presentation or other related task.

Costs

No further costs have been identified for this module.

You must pass all assessment components to pass the module.

Assessment group A1
Weighting Study time Eligible for self-certification
Assessment component
Seminar contribution 10% No
Reassessment component
1000 word reflection Yes (extension)
Assessment component
1500 word essay 10% Yes (extension)
Reassessment component is the same
Assessment component
300 word source based essay 40% Yes (extension)
Reassessment component is the same
Assessment component
3000 word essay 40% Yes (extension)
Reassessment component is the same
Feedback on assessment

Written feedback provided via Tabula; optional oral feedback in office hours.

Courses

This module is Core option list A for:

  • Year 3 of UHIA-V102 Undergraduate History (Renaissance and Modern History Stream)

This module is Option list A for:

  • Year 4 of UITA-R3V2 Undergraduate History and Italian

This module is Option list B for:

  • Year 3 of UHIA-V100 Undergraduate History
  • Year 4 of UHIA-V101 Undergraduate History (with Year Abroad)