Auschwitz in History and Memory

• Credit value: 30 credits at Level 7
• Convenor: Professor Nikolaus Wachsmann
• Assessment: a 5000-5500-word essay (100%)

Auschwitz was the deadliest Nazi camp and the deadliest Holocaust site: during the Second World War, the SS killed around one million Jews here, most of them murdered on arrival in gas chambers. Auschwitz has since become a symbol of the Holocaust and of the twentieth century more generally.

This course examines the history of Auschwitz, exploring its multiple functions - as a site of political terror, slave labour, medical experiments and genocide - and the lived experience of victims and perpetrators. The course also surveys the far-reaching legacy of Auschwitz after the war, looking at key aspects such as representation, commemoration and justice.

Indicative module syllabus

• Origins
• Functions
• Agency and lived experience
• Planet Auschwitz? External connections
• SS lives
• Post-war justice
• Survivors - memory and trauma
• Representation and the politics of memory
• The meaning of Auschwitz

By the end of this module, you will:

• have a good knowledge of the major themes in the history of Auschwitz
• compared and contrasted the approaches used by scholars to the history and memory of Auschwitz, and understand the reasons for difference
• have handled primary sources with confidence and demonstrated the ability to use them as a means of evaluating current paradigms
• understand how and why the place of Auschwitz in popular memory across different countries has changed
• have situated Auschwitz within wider debates about the development of the historical discipline, and related disciplines.