History Commons^™

From Schmelt Camp To “Little Auschwitz”: Blechhammer’S Role In The Holocaust, Susanne Barth

Purdue University Press Books

From Schmelt Camp to “Little Auschwitz”: Blechhammer’s Role in the Holocaust is the first in-depth study of the second largest Auschwitz subcamp, Blechhammer (Blachownia Śląska), and its lesser known yet significant prehistory as a so-called Schmelt camp, a forced labor camp for Jews operating outside the concentration camp system. Drawing on previously untapped archival documents and a wide array of survivor testimonies, the book provides novel findings on Blechhammer’s role in the Holocaust in Eastern Upper Silesia, a formerly Polish territory annexed to Nazi Germany in the fall of 1939, where 120,000 Jews lived.

Established in the spring of 1942 …

The Holocaust's Legacy: Influencing Jewish Political Identity, Jordan Eskew

Undergraduate Honors Theses

This thesis addresses the intricate relationship between the historical persecution of the Holocaust and its enduring influence on contemporary Jewish political engagement, a subject of significant contemporary relevance in political and international relations. Despite broad recognition of the Holocaust’s impact, the specific ways in which its memory affects Jewish political attitudes and actions around the world in the modern day have not been sufficiently thoroughly examined. Utilizing qualitative methods, including interviews with 20 individuals—public figures, Holocaust survivors, their descendants, and broader members of the Jewish diaspora— this study focuses on understanding the interplay between historical trauma, community cohesion, and the …

Facing Catholic Antisemitism In Post-War France, The Finaly Affair: 1945-1953, Elizabeth Jane Spaide

Theses and Dissertations

In February 1944, Dr. Fritz and Anni Finaly, Jewish Austrians who had fled the Nazi regime for France in 1939, made a desperate decision. To protect their sons Robert and Gérald from persecution, they placed them in the care of others. The boys were eventually confined to a municipal nursery run by Antoinette Brun in Grenoble, France. After the war, Brun’s refusal to return the children to their relatives led to protracted court proceedings, rendering what came to be called the Finaly Affair, the most highly publicized post-war custody case in France. This thesis will analyze how the press coverage …

Sites Of Incarceration And Forced Labour Under The Nazi Regime And Its Allies, 1933-1945, Maja Kruse, Anne Kelly Knowles

History Faculty Scholarship

This map was commissioned by the United Nations Education Outreach Section to be part of a refreshed permanent Holocaust exhibition at UN headquarters in New York City. The contents of the map draw on years of research by Anne Kelly Knowles, Maja Kruse, and other members of the Holocaust Project research team at the University of Maine, Duke University, Washington University at St. Louis, and Middlebury College. This research was supported chiefly by grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, with additional support from team members' institutions. No territorial boundaries are shown because they changed many times from 1938 …

Hogan's Heroes: Fact Or Fiction?, Mark Granicke

Undergraduate Research Symposium

When it first debuted in 1965, Hogan’s Heroes was not met with the fondness it later garnered. Set in Stalag 13, a fictional German Luftwaffe (Air Force) prisoner of war (POW) camp during World War II (WWII), the show follows the American POW Colonel Robert E. Hogan and his band of compatriots as they run a secret sabotage operation within the camp under the nose of the inept camp commandant Colonel Wilhelm Klink. Hilarity ensues as Hogan and crew outwit the Germans, portrayed as bumbling idiots, in all sorts of missions, from smuggling prisoners, stealing plans, blowing up trains, and …

Dogma: How A Convenient Narrative Led To The Holocaust, Morgan R. Schroeder

Geifman Prize in Holocaust Studies

No abstract provided.

Sonic Salvation: A Neuroscientific Exploration Of Music's Role In Cultural Preservation In The Wake Of The Holocaust, Regan K. Recklaus

Geifman Prize in Holocaust Studies

As easy as it would be to begin this essay with a succinct “music is” statement (e.g. “music is life” or “music is power”), it would be akin to encapsulating the boundless expanse of the cosmos in a single photograph. It would fail to honor the immeasurable richness and complexity of the force which has transformed humanity from a group of disparate apes into a symphony of interconnected souls. For all of history, music has served as a means for humans to tap into and express the very things that make them human—their emotions, culture, and individual identities. Its profound …

"Killin' Nazis": How Jews Are Portrayed In Tarantino's Inglorious Basterds, Skylar Baxter

Undergraduate Research Symposium

In Quentin Tarantino's Inglorious Basterds, Jews are portrayed as violent, revenge-seeking Nazi hunters. This portrayal creates an ironic conflict within Tarantino's audience because Jews are seen as capable of the same atrocities of which they were victims. Under Hannah Arendt's definition of Nazis, the actions of the Jews in Inglorious Basterds are not equivalent to the crimes that Nazis committed. Jewish revenge fantasies are thereby not the same as the actual violence that Jews received from Nazis.

Unraveling The Truth: The Wannsee Conference And Holocaust Denial, Howie Parkes

Undergraduate Research Symposium

The Wannsee Conference, held in January 1942, marked a crucial turning point in the Holocaust, as it signified the Nazi regime's decision to systematically exterminate Europe's Jewish population on an industrial scale. This poster presentation examines the role of the Wannsee Conference in Holocaust denial narratives and the portrayal of the conference in the critically acclaimed film, Conspiracy (2001). I discuss how Holocaust deniers use the Wannsee Conference to argue against the existence of a plan to exterminate Jews or to suggest that the conference never took place. Through an analysis of the conference transcript, I demonstrate its significance in …