PSYC 3225/HRTS 3600: Holocaust

The Holocaust remains an unparalleled instance in human history of industrialized, systematic genocide. As such, the Holocaust has been examined extensively from a historical and political perspective. However, much less has been done to examine the Holocaust from a psychological or sociological perspective. While there are questions related to the Holocaust that psychology/sociology can never answer, it is important to seek understanding through these questions.

This course examines from a psychological/sociological perspective the groups of individuals associated with the Holocaust (perpetrators, victims, bystanders, resistance fighters) noting that these groups are not always mutually exclusive. Issues explored include: the question of what enables individuals collectively and individually to perpetrate evil/genocide, the nature of extreme prejudice, the psychology of propaganda, the impact of extreme victimization on the victim (during the Holocaust, upon liberation, and in later years), the impact on children (child victims, children of Holocaust survivors, and children of Nazis), and the question of what enabled some individuals/groups/countries to actively become involved in resistance while others remained passive bystanders and others sympathizers/collaborators. The roles that psychology, psychologists, and psychiatrists played during the Holocaust are also examined.

Professor: Linda M. Woolf, Ph.D.

Click here for the Spring 2023 Syllabus

Links related to the Holocaust

• Yad Vashem Home Page
• The U.S. Holocaust Museum
• The Ghetto Fighters' House: Holocaust and Jewish Resistance Heritage Museum
• Anne Frank House
• Holocaust/Shoah Educational Projects/Resources
• Cybrary of the Holocaust
• Nizkor: A Holocaust Remembrance
• Hiatt Holocaust Collection
• Yivo Institute for Jewish Research
  Exhibits
  Resources
• AMCHA: Israeli Center for Holocaust Survivors and the Second Generation
• The March of the Living
• Simon Wiesenthal Center
• Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation
• The Holocaust History Project
• Fortunoff Video Archive - Yale University
• Voice Vision: Holocaust Survivor Oral HIstories
• A Teacher's Guide to the Holocaust
• Holocaust Teacher Resource Center
• A Teacher's Guide to the Holocaust: Books
• Learning about the Holocaust through Art
• The Undeniable Holocaust: A Pictorial Archive
• Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum
• Business and the Holocaust
• Women And The Holocaust
• The Einsatzgruppen
• Nazi Assault on Roma and Sinti Links
• The Nazi Persecution of Homosexuals: An Annotated Bibliography of Nonfiction Sources in English
• The Pink Triangle Pages
• Archives of the Later Psychological Effects of the Holocaust on its Survivors
• Drew University Center for Holocaust Study
• Austrian Gedenkdienst
• Nazi Crimes on Trial
• Additional Links concerning Nazi Science
• Global Jewish Information Network - Holocaust Links
• Witness to a Jewish Century
• North Harris College Learning Resource Center: Holocaust Internet Sites
• Holocaust/Shoah Resource Links
• Additional Holocaust Links

Recommended Books Related to the Holocaust

Bystanders:

• Wyman, D. S. (1969). Paper walls: America and the refugee crisis 1938-1941. New York: Pantheon.

• Wyman, D. S. (1984). The abandonment of the Jews: America and the Holocaust, 1941 - 1945. New York: Pantheon.

• Arad, Y. (1987). Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka: The Operation Reinhard death camps. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.

• Dobroszycki, L. (Ed.) (1984). The chronicle of the Lodz Ghetto 1941-1944. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

• Gutman, Y. & Berenbaum, M. (Eds.) (1994). Anatomy of the Auschwitz death camp. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.

• Hackett, D. A. (Ed.) (1995). The Buchenwald report. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.

• Kermish, J. (Ed.) (1986). To live with honor and die with honor! Selected documents from the Warsaw Ghetto underground archives "Oneg Shabbat". Jerusalam: Menachem Press.

Children

• Barr-On, D. (1989). Legacy of silence: Encounters with children of the Third Reich. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

• Fisher, J. G. (Ed.). (1991). The persistence of youth: Oral testimonies of the Holocaust. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.

• Holliday, L. (Ed.). (1995). Children in the Holocaust and World War II: Their secret diaries. New York: Pocket Books.

• Marks, J. (1993). The hidden children: The secret survivors of the Holocaust. New York: Fawcett Columbine.

• Sichrovsky, P. (1987). Born guilty: Children of Nazi families. New York: Basic Books.

Documents:

• Arad, Y., Gutman, Y., & Margaliot, A. (1981). Documents on the Holocaust. Jerusalem: Yad Vashem.

• Berenbaum, M. (Ed.) (1997). Witness to the Holocaust: An illustrated documentary history of the Holocaust in the words of its victims, perpetrators, and bystanders. New York: Harper Collins.

Historical Overviews:

• Dawidowicz, L. S. (1975). The war against the Jews 1933 - 1945. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.

• Marrus, M. R. (1987). The Holocaust in history. New York: Meridian.

• Yahil, L. (1990). The Holocaust: The fate of European Jewry 1932-1945. New York: Oxford University Press. (Excellent Historical Overview)

• Bard, M. G. (1994). Forgotten victims: The abandonment of Americans in Hitler1s camps. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.

• Fein, H. (1979). Accounting for genocide: National responses and Jewish victimization during the Holocaust. New York: The Free Press.

• Hilberg, R. (1992). Perpetrators, victims, bystanders: The Jewish catastrophe 933-1945. New York: HarperPerennial.

• Plant, R. (1986). The pink triangle: The Nazi war against homosexuals. New York: Henry Holt and Company.

• Schleunes, K. A. (1970). The twisted road to Auschwitz: Nazi policy toward German Jews 1933-1939. Chicago: University of Illinois Press.

• Weiss, John (1996). Ideology of death: Why the Holocaust happened in Germany. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee.

Holocaust Denial:

• Lipstadt, D. (1993). Denying the Holocaust: The growing assault on truth and memory. New York: Plume Books.

• Vidal-Naquet, P. (1992). Assassins of memory: Essays on the denial of the Holocaust. New York: Columbia University Press

Perpetrators:

• Browning, C. R. (1992). Ordinary men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland. New York: HarperPerennial.

• Paskuly, S. (Ed.) (1996). Death dealer: The memoirs of the SS Kommandant at Auschwitz Rudolph Hoss. New York: Da Capo Press.

• Sereny, G. (1974). Into that darkness. London: Andre Deutsch.

Philosophical & theological perspectives:

• Berkovits, E. (1973). Faith after the Holocaust. New York: Ktav Publishing House.

• Berkovits, E. (1979). With God in hell: Judaism in the ghettos and death camps. New York: Sanhedrin Press.

• Fackenheim, E. L. (1982). To mend the world: Foundations of post-Holocaust thought. New York: Schocken.

• Roth, J. K. & Berenbaum, M. (Eds.). (1989). Holocaust: Religious & philosophical implications. New York: Paragon House.

• Wiesenthal, S. (1970 & 1997 Editions). The sunflower. New York: Schocken.

Psychology and Medicine:

• Allport, G. W. (1958). The nature of prejudice. New York: Anchor Books.

• Des Pres, T. (1976). The survivor: An anatomy of life in the death camps. New York: Oxford University Press.

• Hartman, G. H. (Ed.). (1994). Holocaust remembrance: The shapes of memory. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell.

• Hass, A. (1995). The aftermath: Living with the Holocaust. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press.

• Helmreich, W. B. (1992). Against all odds: Holocaust survivors and the successful lives they made in America. New York: Simon & Schuster.

• Jacobson, K. (1994). Embattled selves: An investigation into the nature of identity through oral histories of Holocaust survivors. New York: Atlantic Monthly Press.

• Langer, L. L. (1991). Holocaust testimonies: The ruins of memory. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

• Lifton, R. J. (1986). The Nazi doctors: Medical killing and the psychology of genocide. New York: Basic Books.

Resistance and Rescue

• Fogelman, E. (1994). Conscience & courage: Rescuers of Jews during the Holocaust. New York: Anchor Books.

• Gutman, Y. (1988). Fighters among the ruins: The story of Jewish heroism during World War II. Washington, DC: B'nai B'rith.

• Scholl, I. (1970). Students Against tyranny: The resistance of the White Rose. Middletwon, CT: American Education Publications.

• Suhl, Y. (Ed.) (1967). They fought back: The story of the Jewish resistance in Nazi Europe. New York: Crown.

Survivor Testimony:

• Adelsberger, L. (1995). Auschwitz: A Doctor's Story. Boston: Northeastern University Press.

• Amery, J. (1986). At the mind's limits: Contemplations by a survivor on Auschwitz and its realities. New York: Schocken.

• Lengyel, O. (1995). Five Chimneys: A woman survivor's true story of Auschwitz. Chicago: Academy Chicago Publishers.

• Levi, P. (1958). Survival in Auschwitz. New York: Collier Books.

• Levi, P. (1986). If this is a man: Remembering Auschwitz. New York: Summit Books.

• Levi, P. (1988). The drowned and the saved. New York: Vintage International.

• Nomberg-Przytyk, S. (1985). Auschwitz: True tales from a grotesque land. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press.

• Steiner, J. (1967). Treblinka. New York: Simon and Schuster.

• Wiesel, E. (1988). The night trilogy. New York: Noonday.

• Zuckerman, A. (1991). A voice in the chorus: Memories of a teenager saved by Schindler. Stamford, CT: Longmeadow Press.

Survivor Testimony & Histories- Anthologies:

• Eibeshitz, J. & Eibeshitz, A. (Eds.) (1993). Women in the Holocaust (Vols. 1 & 2). New York: Remember.

• Langer L. L. (Ed.). (1995). Art from the ashes. New York: Oxford University Press.

• Rittner, C. & Roth, J. K. (Eds.) (1991). Different Voices: Women and the Holocaust. New York: Paragon House.