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National Memories of the Holocaust

Class at Faculty of Arts |
APOV30127

This text is not available in the current language. Showing version "cs".Syllabus

Instructor: Pavel Barša

* National Memories of the Holocaust

In the aftermath of World War II, the destruction of European Jews was not perceived as something exceptional in relation to other Nazi atrocities. Neither the event itself, nor its victims were given a special status vis-?-vis other events and victims of the war. Rather, the suffering of Jewish civilians was superseded by an apotheosis of heroism of antifascist fighters. This situation radically changed in the last quarter of the 20th century, when the mass murder of Jews by the Nazis became an emblematic event that symbolized not only Nazism or WWII, but the radical evil itself. As the genocide of the Jews began to be called "the Holocaust", it gained a pre-eminence not only in the discourses of the nationalities that were part of it (as victims, perpetrators or bystanders) but also in those of other groups and societies of the western world. Was it due to a "return of the repressed" that, according to Freud, characterizes a traumatic experience, or, rather, to conscious efforts of various groups to appropriate the memory of the Nazi genocide for their own purposes? This and related questions will be asked with regard to the specific national contexts of Israel, Germany, Poland, France and the USA.

* Summer Term

* Day: Wednesday

* Time: 17.30-19.00

Place: Room 326 (Palachovo náměstí 1)

Course Requirements

* Oral presentation

* Participation (including position papers for each class)

* In-class essay

* Week One

Bartov, Omer: Intellectuals on Auschwitz. Memory, History, and Truth, Murder in Our Midst: The Holocaust, Industrial Killing, and Representation, Oxford University press, 1996, pp. 115-136; Friedländer, Saul: History, Memory, and the Historian: Facing the Shoah, in: Roth, Michael S. and Salas, Charles G. (eds.): Disturbing Remains: Memory, History, and Crisis in the Twentieth Century, pp. 271-282.

* Week Two

Segev, Tom: The Seventh Million. The Israelis and the Holocaust, New York, Hill and Wang, 1993, (selection).

* Week Three

Zertal, Idith: Israel's Holocaust and the Politics of Nationhood, Cambridge University Press, 2005 (selection).

* Week Four

Cole, Time: Yad Vashem, in: Selling the Holocaust. From Auschwitz to Schindler. How History is Bought, Packaged, and Sold, Routledge, London, (selection).

* Week Five

Giesen, Bernard: The Trauma of Perpetrators: The Holocaust as the Traumatic Reference of German National Identity, in: Alexander, Jeffrey C. et al. (eds.): Cultural Trauma and Collective Identity, University of California Press, 2004, pp. 112-154.

* Week Six

Pearce, Caroline: Contemporary Germany and the Nazi Legacy. Remembrance, Politics and the Dialectic of Normality, Palgrave, London, 2008, pp. 44-53, 80-118.

* Week Seven

Steinlauf, Michael C.: Bondage to the Dead. Poland and the Memory of the Holocaust, Syracuse University Press, 1997, pp. 43-61.

* Week Eight

Steinlauf, Michael C.: Bondage to the Dead. Poland and the Memory of the Holocaust, Syracuse University Press, 1997, pp. 62-88.

Week Nine

Steinlauf, Michael C.: Bondage to the Dead. Poland and the Memory of the Holocaust, Syracuse University Press, 1997, pp. 89-121.

* Week Ten

Wolf, Joan B.: Harnessing the Holocaust. The Politics of Memory in France, Stanford University Press, Stanford, California 2004, pp. 1-24.

* Week Eleven

Wolf, Joan B.: Harnessing the Holocaust. The Politics of Memory in France, Stanford University Press, Stanford, California 2004, pp. 79-80, pp. 92-127, pp. 189-198.

* Week Twelve

Novick, Peter: The Holocaust in American Life, New York, Houghton Mifflin, 1999, (selections).

* Week Thirteen

Novick, Peter: The Holocaust in American Life, New York, Houghton Mifflin, 1999, (selections).

This text is not available in the current language. Showing version "cs".Annotation

Instructor: Pavel Barša

National Memories of the Holocaust

In the aftermath of World War II, the destruction of European Jews was not perceived as something exceptional in relation to other Nazi atrocities. Neither the event itself, nor its victims were given a special status vis-a-vis other events and victims of the war. Rather, the suffering of Jewish civilians was superseded by an apotheosis of heroism of antifascist fighters. This situation radically changed in the last quarter of the 20th century, when the mass murder of Jews by the Nazis became an emblematic event that symbolized not only Nazism or WWII, but the radical evil itself. As the genocide of the Jews began to be called "the Holocaust", it gained a pre-eminence not only in the discourses of the nationalities that were part of it (as victims, perpetrators or bystanders) but also in those of other groups and societies of the western world. Was it due to a

"return of the repressed" that, according to Freud, characterizes a traumatic experience, or, rather, to conscious efforts of various groups to appropriate the memory of the Nazi genocide for their own purposes? This and related questions will be asked with regard to the specific national contexts of Israel, Germany, Poland, France and the USA.

Summer Term

Day: Wednesday

Time: 17.30-19.00

Place: Room 326 (Palachovo náměstí 1)

Course Requirements

Oral presentation

Participation (including position papers for each class)

In-class essay

Week One

Bartov, Omer: Intellectuals on Auschwitz. Memory, History, and Truth, Murder in Our Midst: The Holocaust, Industrial Killing, and Representation, Oxford University press, 1996, pp. 115-136; Friedländer, Saul: History, Memory, and the Historian:

Facing the Shoah, in: Roth, Michael S. and Salas, Charles G. (eds.): Disturbing Remains: Memory, History, and Crisis in the

Twentieth Century, pp. 271-282.

Week Two

Segev, Tom: The Seventh Million. The Israelis and the Holocaust, New York, Hill and Wang, 1993, (selection).

Week Three

Zertal, Idith: Israel's Holocaust and the Politics of Nationhood, Cambridge University Press, 2005 (selection).

Week Four

Cole, Time: Yad Vashem, in: Selling the Holocaust. From Auschwitz to Schindler. How History is Bought, Packaged, and

Sold, Routledge, London, (selection).

Week Five

Giesen, Bernard: The Trauma of Perpetrators: The Holocaust as the Traumatic Reference of German National Identity, in:

Alexander, Jeffrey C. et al. (eds.): Cultural Trauma and Collective Identity, University of California Press, 2004, pp. 112-154.

Week Six

Pearce, Caroline: Contemporary Germany and the Nazi Legacy. Remembrance, Politics and the Dialectic of Normality,

Palgrave, London, 2008, pp. 44-53, 80-118.

Week Seven

Steinlauf, Michael C.: Bondage to the Dead. Poland and the Memory of the Holocaust, Syracuse University Press, 1997, pp. 43-61.

Week Eight

Steinlauf, Michael C.: Bondage to the Dead. Poland and the Memory of the Holocaust, Syracuse University Press, 1997, pp. 62-88.

Week Nine

Steinlauf, Michael C.: Bondage to the Dead. Poland and the Memory of the Holocaust, Syracuse University Press, 1997, pp. 89-121.

Week Ten

Wolf, Joan B.: Harnessing the Holocaust. The Politics of Memory in France, Stanford University Press, Stanford, California 2004, pp. 1-24.

Week Eleven

Wolf, Joan B.: Harnessing the Holocaust. The Politics of Memory in France, Stanford University Press, Stanford, California 2004, pp. 79-80, pp. 92-127, pp. 189-198.

Week Twelve

Novick, Peter: The Holocaust in American Life, New York, Houghton Mifflin, 1999, (selections).

Week Thirteen

Novick, Peter: The Holocaust in American Life, New York, Houghton Mifflin, 1999, (selections).