This course addresses the twentieth-century genocide that was the Holocaust, the attempted annihilation of European Jews and other designated racial and political opponents led by the Third Reich in Germany. We will review the horrific events of the Holocaust and explore the current scholarly understanding of this history: What does it mean to remember the Holocaust today?

The Holocaust continues to be relevant, and not only for surviving victims and perpetrators. We will consider how and why the Holocaust has been remembered in the United States and abroad, whether in museums and schools or popular culture and the Internet. We will also discuss in particular how visual evidence of atrocities has been circulated to provide testimony and promote popular awareness of the crime of genocide.