| Unit name | Childhood and the Nazis (Level H Special Subject) |
|---|---|
| Unit code | HIST30023 |
| Credit points | 20 |
| Level of study | H/6 |
| Teaching block(s) |
Teaching Block 2 (weeks 13 - 24) |
| Unit director | Dr. Michlic |
| Open unit status | Not open |
| Pre-requisites |
None |
| Co-requisites |
None |
| School/department | Department of History (Historical Studies) |
| Faculty | Faculty of Arts |
This Special Subject is designed to introduce students to various themes in the overlapping subject areas of modern European history of childhood, World War II and the Holocaust. We will focus on the experiences of children in Europe between 1933 and 1950. Children as a whole were drastically affected by the policies of the Nazi regime and the war conducted in Europe, yet different groups of children experienced the period in radically different ways, depending on their backgrounds and where they lived. First, we will look at how the Nazis made children - both those considered “Aryan” and those designated “enemies” of the German people, such as Jewish children – an important focus of their politics. Next, we will examine German boyhood and girlhood in the Nazi state, the treatment of Roma and Slav children, and daily life experiences of Jewish children in the Holocaust. We will then explore children’s experiences in the immediate postwar period: specifically their experiences of orphanhood, displacement, rehabilitation, and the extent to which they were able to regain the normalcy of childhood. Throughout, we will use a variety of different primary sources in English translation, including diaries, memoirs, written and oral testimonies, pictorial material, and documentary films. Students will discuss how these sources can be used in the historical reconstruction of European childhood.
On successful completion of this unit students will have developed: 1. an in-depth and detailed knowledge and understanding of the impact of the Nazi regime on children before, during and after World War II; 2. the ability to work at an advanced level with primary sources; 3. the ability to integrate both primary and secondary source material into a wider historical analysis; 4. the ability to learn independently within a small-group context; 5. a deeper awareness of how to approach a long term historical analysis; 6. the ability to select pertinent evidence/data in order to illustrate/demonstrate more general historical points; 7. the ability to derive benefit from and contribute effectively to group discussion; 8. the ability to identify a particular academic interpretation, evaluate it critically and form an individual viewpoint; 9. the acquisition of advanced writing, research, and presentation skills.
Weekly 2-hour seminar Access to tutorial advice with unit tutor in consultation hours.
3,500 word essay (50%) 2-hour unseen written exam (50%)
Both the essay and exam will assess ILOs 1-9 by assessing the students’ understanding of the unit’s key themes, the related historiography as developed during their reading and participation in / learning from small group seminars, and relevant primary sources
Michael Burleigh and Wolfgang Wipperman, The Racial State: Germany 1933-1945, (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1991) Vera K. Fast, Children’s Exodus: A History of the Kindertransport, (London, I.B. Tauris, 2011) Saul Friendländer, When Memory Comes, (New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, 1979) Maria Hochberg-Mariańska and Noe Gruss, eds. The Children Accuse, trans. Bill Johnston (London:Vallentine Mitchell, 1996, first edition in Polish, 1946) Nicholas Stargardt, Witnesses of War: Children’s Lives Under the Nazis, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005) Tara Zahra, The Lost Children: Reconstructing Europe’s Families After World War II (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2011)
