Postgraduate - UnitAPG4286 - Final journey: remembering the holocaust

This unit entry is for students who completed this unit in 2012 only. For students planning to study the unit, please refer to the unit indexes in the the current edition of the Handbook. If you have any queries contact the managing faculty for your course or area of study.

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12 points, SCA Band 1, 0.250 EFTSL

Refer to the specific census and withdrawal dates for the semester(s) in which this unit is offered, or view unit timetables.

Level	Postgraduate
Faculty	Faculty of Arts
Monash Passport category	International Short Field Experience (Explore Program)
Offered	Prato Winter semester 2012 (Off-campus Day)
Coordinator(s)	Karen Auerbach

Notes

Previously coded HYM4165

Synopsis

This two-week intensive study abroad unit explores the modern history of European Jews before the destruction. Students will travel to the major centres of interwar Jewish life in Italy, Germany, Poland and Lithuania, and encounter the diverse heritage of Jewish life in each country. The unit will explore issues central to this period and the individuals who shaped their times. Students will visit museums, synagogues, cemeteries, destroyed ghettos, and sites of mass murder such as Auschwitz-Birkenau. We will ask what remains of the past, by looking at the ways in which the lost world of European Jews is being memorialised and renewed through tourism and return.

Outcomes

Upon successful completion of this unit students will have:

the capacity to locate the development of modern Jewish life in the context of modern Europe
a demonstrated ability to evaluate the social, political , economic and intellectual concerns of the inter-war community
an understanding of the institutions and individuals that shaped the interwar European Jewish communities
the capacity to describe and analyse the diversity of Jewish communal life and cultural expression in interwar Europe
an understanding of gender and class issues within the framework of the interwar European Jewish communities
an understanding of the significance of Yiddish as a literary and cultural phenomenon
a broader appreciation of the social history and cultural differences in Europe gained through study abroad
In addition, students at fourth-year level will have a familiarity with the primary sources and an appreciation of the historiographical problems involved in reconstructing a history of these destroyed communities.