Joining the Holocaust Class
Yes, I've taken the all-important next step of joining Dr. Marcia Horn's class on the Holocaust. Yesterday found me squeezed into a student desk in a Ferrum College classroom along with 21 other students and all but one member of the 10-member faculty who will teach this course. From Spanish to Music to Political Science to Psychology to History to Religion to Art to Humanities--there are two music teachers--as Dr. Horn's overview mentions, this multi-disciplinary course will explore the historical and social conditions leading up to the Holocaust, the resulting dehumanization and death, as well as the strategies for survival.
Again in Dr. Horn's words, the course will examine the post-war dangers of neo-Nazism, totalitarianism, racism, and intolerance in our own times. The course will also devote some attention to the mass murders in the Soviet Union from 1917 to 1987 and to modern examples of genocide. Students will be asking themselves difficult, often painful, questions about their own feelings on these subjects.
Required reading: Engel, David. The Holocaust: The third Reich and the Jews
Niewyk, Donald, ed. The Holocaust (3rd ed.)
Volavkova, Hana, ed. ...I Never Saw Another Butterfly
Wiesel, Elie. Night
Wiesenthal, Simon. The Sunflower
Yolen, Jane. Briar Rose
Tomorrow (Thursday, 17 Jan 08) will be our first actual class, provided the weather cooperates. Forecast is sleet and freezing rain. The class will be a discussion of Race, Racism and Ethnicity: Dehumanization, Rationalization: Posters, Mengele's experiments, U.S. sterilization/eugenics programs. (Dr. Susan Mead).
Why am I so drawn to this? So passionate to learn more, to visit the Holocaust Museum, to try to understand such evil events, to find out more about the Holocaust? Does it date from my reading The Diary of Ann Frank so many years ago, and realizing how much I resembled her at the same age, causing me to identify with her even more closely? Was it my father's enlisting in the US Army near the end of WWII and being posted in France, promising one day to take me there? (He was never able to fulfill that promise.)
When my father was dying, he told me he'd been adopted, that the grandmother I knew was his biological mother, but after his father died while building the Panama Canal, her second husband had formally adopted him when he was four years old. His adoptive father had a very German last name, which I suspect was behind my father's enlistment. I am certain he was discriminated against (we lived in Washington, DC) simply because of his last name, as I remember very well the insults that were directed at me as well.
Whatever the reason, I know I will learn a great deal taking this class and visiting the museum. Perhaps I will learn more about myself.
Again in Dr. Horn's words, the course will examine the post-war dangers of neo-Nazism, totalitarianism, racism, and intolerance in our own times. The course will also devote some attention to the mass murders in the Soviet Union from 1917 to 1987 and to modern examples of genocide. Students will be asking themselves difficult, often painful, questions about their own feelings on these subjects.
Required reading: Engel, David. The Holocaust: The third Reich and the Jews
Niewyk, Donald, ed. The Holocaust (3rd ed.)
Volavkova, Hana, ed. ...I Never Saw Another Butterfly
Wiesel, Elie. Night
Wiesenthal, Simon. The Sunflower
Yolen, Jane. Briar Rose
Tomorrow (Thursday, 17 Jan 08) will be our first actual class, provided the weather cooperates. Forecast is sleet and freezing rain. The class will be a discussion of Race, Racism and Ethnicity: Dehumanization, Rationalization: Posters, Mengele's experiments, U.S. sterilization/eugenics programs. (Dr. Susan Mead).
Why am I so drawn to this? So passionate to learn more, to visit the Holocaust Museum, to try to understand such evil events, to find out more about the Holocaust? Does it date from my reading The Diary of Ann Frank so many years ago, and realizing how much I resembled her at the same age, causing me to identify with her even more closely? Was it my father's enlisting in the US Army near the end of WWII and being posted in France, promising one day to take me there? (He was never able to fulfill that promise.)
When my father was dying, he told me he'd been adopted, that the grandmother I knew was his biological mother, but after his father died while building the Panama Canal, her second husband had formally adopted him when he was four years old. His adoptive father had a very German last name, which I suspect was behind my father's enlistment. I am certain he was discriminated against (we lived in Washington, DC) simply because of his last name, as I remember very well the insults that were directed at me as well.
Whatever the reason, I know I will learn a great deal taking this class and visiting the museum. Perhaps I will learn more about myself.
posted by Marion | 8:25 PM
3 Comments:
thank you marion for this very moving post. I long to hear more.
all best*
TR
How wonderful Miss Marion! I can't wait to hear about all that you learn and I'm sure you will find more interesting discoveries about your family. What a wonderful journey.
I once took an ethics class. I felt it would be a waste of my time and money, but wanted to fulfill another prerequisite.
By the end of this class, I had learned a lot and most of it was about myself.
I am jealous. You get to learn and discover the world through different eyes. At the end of this journey, you will be different as well. I look forward to hearing all about your upcoming transformation!
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