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AH45 Auschwitz as Apocalypse

The genocidal event known as “The Holocaust” has been characterized as the apocalypse of Ashkenazi history. Between 1941 and 1945, across German-occupied Europe, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered approximately six million Jews, around two-thirds of Europe’s Jewish population. The murders were carried out in pogroms, mass shootings, extermination through work in concentration camps and in gas chambers, chiefly in Auschwitz, Bełżec, Chełmno, Majdanek, Sobibór, and Treblinka in occupied Poland. The term “apocalypse” is applicable in both senses of this word: the Holocaust was both the end of Ashkenazi history and a revelation regarding its reality, its millennial dynamic in Europe. This course examines the events that led to the Holocaust, the event itself, and its consequences for post-Ashkenazi history.

Course Specifications
Type: Elective
Lesson type: Lecture
Hours: 28 (5 credits)
Category: HISTORY
Requirement: 1 essay
Instructor: Prof. MICHAEL CHIGHEL
Status: The course will be available in the future.
Course Readings2
Hilberg Raul, The Destruction of the European Jews (Yale, 1961)
Lacoue-Labarthe, The Fiction of the Political (1987)