Holocaust history

BOE Member who Wrongly Identifies Nazis as "Socialists" Shapes How Colorado Students Learn Holocaust History

Historians and teachers argue that tying limited space for Holocaust and genocide education in the curriculum to a crusade against leftist politics is distracting and an antisemitic hijacking of education by politics. 

Does Ken Burns's Holocaust Doc Face Thorny Questions about U.S. Actions?

by Olivia B. Waxman

Historians involved with the PBS project wrestle with the question of whether the United States could reasonably have done more to offer asylum to Europe's Jews or to stop their mass-scale murder. 

Ken Burns's Holocaust History Has a Palestine Problem

by Rafael Medoff and Monty Noam Penkower

Although there was no sovereign government in Palestine between 1933 and 1945, British authorities there admitted a quarter million Jewish refugees. The filmmaker's focus on "sovereign" countries' record admitting refugees burnishes the Roosevelt administration's record. 

Burns Revisits American Holocaust Role

The new documentary examines the nation's response to Jewish refugees in the context of Southern Jim Crow policies and global racism and antisemitism. 

At 75th Anniversary, What Can Anne Frank's Diary Teach Today's Teens?

by Naomi Yavneh Klos

A project that trains middle school student docents to lead peer discussions of Anne Frank's diary unlocks the power of empathy and experience to impart lessons about the Holocaust and about the broader concerns of human dignity and security for adolescents strained by the pandemic, violence, and identity-based demonization. 

The Republicans' Holocaust Problem

by Steve Hochstadt

"New Republican laws and their emboldened approach to white supremacy will inevitably lead to an attack on any Holocaust teaching which goes beyond the discussion of prejudice to analyze the power of embedded racism and Christian white supremacy."

When Did They Decide? The Wannsee Conference in the Context of Nazi Antisemitism

by Christopher R. Browning

What does a new book add to our understanding of the Nazi decision to pursue genocide against Europe's Jews? 

Statement by Scholars of World War II, Genocide and Nazism on Invasion of Ukraine

"We strongly reject the Russian government’s cynical abuse of the term genocide, the memory of World War II and the Holocaust, and the equation of the Ukrainian state with the Nazi regime to justify its unprovoked aggression."

Child Holocaust Survivor: Whoopi Goldberg's Remarks "Careless" and "Saddening"

Survivor and Holocaust educator Joan Salter says that the TV host's remarks grossly miss the nature of antisemitic ideology, oppression and genocide under Nazism. 

Whoopi Goldberg's Confusion about Racism and the Holocaust Matters Because it's Common

by Jonathan Zimmerman

The TV host's remarks about the Holocaust illustrate the pervasive hold of the idea that race is a biological fact instead of a set of social categories that have changed across time and place. Historians should take this moment to educate rather than condemn. 

Tennessee School Board Bans Holocaust Graphic Memoir "Maus"

Author Art Spiegelman called the decision "Orwellian" and suggested young people would be deprived of knowledge. 

Appeals Court Sides with Polish Holocaust Historians

The decision is seen as a victory for historians and academic freedom in a Polish political climate where denying Polish complicity in the Holocaust is part of right-wing politics. 

Jonathan Steinberg: Wrote Influential English Study of Bismarck's Germany

Jonathan Steinberg's scholarly work ranged from evaluating participation in the Holocaust to a biographical study of the influential German chancellor, and his teaching work resulted in him supervising the Prince of Wales in his undergraduate history studies. 

Holocaust Scholars Ordered to Apologize in Polish Libel Case

"The Polish League Against Defamation is ideologically aligned with the country’s ruling party, and the scholars see that as an indication the case is part of a government-backed effort to promote its historical narrative."

Woman, 95, Indicted on 10,000 Counts of Accessory to Murder in Nazi Camp

"Public prosecutors in Germany have indicted a 95-year-old woman for her role supporting the Nazi killing machinery as a secretary in a concentration camp, charging her with 10,000 counts of being an accessory to murder, and complicity in attempted murders."

Pandemic Forces Holocaust Survivor Interviews Onto Zoom

COVID forced a fast shift to video chat to record interviews with Holocaust survivors for the US Holocaust Museum's oral history project. 

Historian: Polish Society Shunned Jewish Survivors Returning From Nazi Camps

Historian Lukasz Krzyzanowski argues that most Poles today are “unwilling to accept the bitter fact that they live in a post-genocidal land.”

After an Online ‘Onslaught’ over Exhibit on Racial Justice, a Florida Holocaust Museum Vows Not to Back Down

A Florida Holocaust museum's decision to feature an exhibition of photographs taken during recent protests over police killings of Black Americans raised questions about the museum's mission and whether the Holocaust can be remembered and its victims honored by comparing the genocide of European Jews to other instances of systemic racism. 

David Hackett, Historian and Holocaust Expert, Dies at 80

Professor Hackett was noted for translating "The Buchenwald Report," made by German-speaking US military officers who described in detail their findings at the liberated concentration camp, preserving a key document for the fight against Holocaust denialism. He died of complications of the coronavirus. 

"You shall never be a bystander." How We Learn About the Holocaust When the Last Survivors Are Gone

by Ayelet Gundar-Goshen

Without living memories, pop culture will inevitably become the main source of knowledge for many of us.