Abstract
On January 30, 1933, Adolf Hitler, leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party (or Nazi party), was named chancellor of Germany. Once in power, Hitler moved quickly to end German democracy by suspending individual freedoms and authorizing special security forces such as the Gestapo, Storm Troopers (SA), and the SS. He also murdered or arrested leaders of opposition political parties. The Nazis, who believed that the racial superiority of the German race was threatened by inferior ones, viewed Jews, Roma (gypsies), and the handicapped as serious biological threats to German racial purity. The German Jews, who numbered about a half a million, were the principal targets of Nazi hatred. The Germans blamed the Jews for the economic depression and for Germany’s defeat in World War I (1914–18).
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Notes
This summary of the events of the Holocaust is based on “History of the Holocaust: An Overview,” in Teaching about the Holocaust: A Resource Guide for Educators, (Washington, DC: USHMM, 1995), 27–34.
Lipstadt, “America and the Memory of the Holocaust, 1950–1965,” 200.
The two most cited early studies are Gerald Reitlinger’s The Final Solution (1953) and Leon Polikov’s Harvest of Hate (1954).
Garber and Zuckerman, “Why Do We Call ‘The Holocaust’ The Holocaust?,” 197–211.
Paul Montgomery, “4,000 at Temple Emanu-El,” New York Times, April 10, 1972, A17.
Irving Spiegel, “A New Historical Guide on Jews,” New York Times, October 30, 1971, A5.
New York Times, May 18, 1970, A2; Spiegel, “A New Historical Guide on Jews,” A5; Friedlander, On the Holocaust.
Wiesel, All Rivers Run to the Sea, 267–70, 319–21; Franciosi, “Introduction.”
Elie Wiesel, “Telling the War,” New York Times, November 5, 1972, Section 7, 3.
Ibid.
Fred M. Hechinger, “Holocaust: A Course Created by Students,” New York Times, February 27, 1972, D9.
Ibid.
John T. McQuiston, “Could There Be Another Holocaust?” New York Times, March 6, 1977, W11. Terrence Des Pres, “Lessons of the Holocaust,” New York Times, April 27, 1976, A35.
Ellen K. Coughlin, “On University Campuses,” Chronicle of Higher Education, May 1, 1978, 2. Peter Novick in The Holocaust in American Life referred to this estimate as “possibly inflated” (p. 188) and I agree. Littell estimated that by 1978 over seven hundred courses were being offered.
Nik Cohn, “Finally, the Full Force of the Who,” New York Times, March 8, 1970, M2.
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© 2008 Thomas D. Fallace
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Fallace, T.D. (2008). Telling the War. In: The Emergence of Holocaust Education in American Schools. Secondary Education in a Changing World. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230611153_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230611153_2
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