GBL 2400 HOLOCAUST JOURNEY
This course will allow participants to learn about the Holocaust through tours of concentration/extermination camps, ghettos, and discussions with Holocaust scholars and survivors. The course typically originates in Frankfurt, continues to Nuremberg, Prague, Krakow, Warsaw, Berlin and Weimar and concludes in Frankfurt, Germany, all extremely significant locations for Jews during the Holocaust. The course will visit at least five concentration/death camps. Students will also have the opportunity to visit Jewish museums and archives, synagogues, and Jewish cemeteries, as well as more traditional tourist attractions such as cathedrals, castles, and art museums. Preparation for the course will include lectures on propaganda, the Weimar Republic, the rise of the Nazis, the Holocaust, and the cold war, as well as movies that help inform this topic. Students will also keep a journal and research their project throughout the journey. Free time will be available in every city for individual research and exploration.
Prerequisite
Acceptance into program and completion of
GBL 1400
Course Types
Civilization; Experiential Learning Requirement; Jewish Studies Elective; German Studies Elective
Notes
Application, acceptance and additional travel fee required.
Course Outcomes
- 1. Experiencing firsthand that which we have learned about in the fall prep class. Transitioning from the intellectual to the visceral.
2. Developing your ability to look critically and evaluate your own culture and biases as we look through the lens of events almost one century ago that still resonate today. We will frame this through the lens of the Holocaust.
3. The Holocaust was very much about the “other”. We will look at differences, then and now, and work on developing self-awareness and self-confidence through exposure to and reflection on difference. We will look carefully at the threads of history that connect those times with the modern age, while not getting into the idea of comparing genocides throughout history but focusing on this particular genocide. We will learn about propaganda and how it influenced the Nazis…and resonates today. The Holocaust emphasized difference and we will contextualize that.
4. We will be in different places and deal with unfamiliar languages, currency, and cultures. We will learn how to approach these differences, to solve problems, and operate in sometimes challenging and uncomfortable situations. We will do this through experience. Mistakes will be made but we will learn from them.
5. We will learn how to interact and communicate effectively with those from another culture or background using appropriate cultural and linguistic strategies. Through the use of apps, sign language…and a smile…we will learn how to communicate even when we don’t know the language (though we will try to learn please, thank you and other important phrases in the native tongue).
6. In the fall, we learned about what happened. Now, we will see how this played out over multiple cultures, environments, and human experiences. We will seek understanding even when what we see defies comprehension.
7. We will use the Holocaust to inform the examination of our responsibilities as active global citizens informed by multiple cultural perspectives. In the fall, we learned, “never again.” On the road we will learn, “never forget.”