Research Seminar (395-0-22)
Topic
Holocaust Trials
Instructors
Benjamin Frommer
847/491-2877
Harris Hall Room 206
Meeting Info
Kresge Centennial Hall 2-339: Tues, Thurs 3:30PM - 4:50PM
Overview of class
Topic: Holocaust Trials
After the Second World War the victorious Allied powers and the liberated peoples of Europe engaged in an unprecedented attempt to bring Nazi war criminals and domestic collaborators to justice. Courts throughout the continent tried and punished hundreds of thousands for having worked with and for Germany and the Axis powers. By and large, however, those trials concentrated on crimes of political collaboration and paid little attention to what is now accepted as the Nazis' greatest crime: the genocide of European Jewry. Although courts did punish some architects of the so-called Final Solution, thousands of Europeans who had organized, perpetrated or otherwise contributed to the Holocaust escaped with minimal penalties or no punishment at all. Over the subsequent decades individuals, organizations, and states have sought to redress the failure to seek out and punish those perpetrators at war's end. Lawyers have prosecuted and defended accused war criminals before courts. Historians have documented the development and execution of genocide, while others have sought to deny the very murders themselves. Through the examination of a series of trials, the first half of the course will discuss both the struggle to bring perpetrators to justice and the efforts to obscure the crimes that had been committed. We will consider the prosecution of war crimes and genocide in the context of the development of international law and historical knowledge over the decades from the Second World War to the present day. For the second half of the course students will concentrate on individual research papers based on primary sources (for example, the records of the Nuremberg Tribunal or Eichman Trial).
Learning Objectives
The course's objective is to examine postwar attempts to employ legal proceedings before courts to seek justice for the crimes committed during the Holocaust of European Jewry and for attempts to deny genocide afterwards. Students will gain an understanding of the potential and limits of various juridical approaches to righting collective and individual wrongs. Students will also practice how to read and analyze primary sources, including trial documents. The primary goal of the course is to write an original research paper.
Evaluation Method
Participation, 1 short paper, project presentation, research paper
Class Materials (Required)
1. Douglas, Lawrence. _The Memory of Judgment: Making Law and History in Trials of the Holocaust_. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001. ISBN-13: 978-0300109849
2. Kaplan, Alice. _The Collaborator: The Trial and Execution of Robert Brasillach_. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000. ISBN-13: 978-0226424149
Class Notes
History Area of Concentration: European
Class Attributes
Advanced Expression
Historical Studies Foundational Discipline
Historical Studies Distro Area
Attendance at 1st class mandatory
Enrollment Requirements
Enrollment Requirements: Freshmen may not register for this course.
Add Consent: Department Consent Required