a.) provide a summary of the analytical stance taken by the authors of the readings,

b.) consider the extent to which a given reading intersects with or corresponds to previous readings,

c.) consider the extent a week’s readings relate to their own academic and intellectual interests,

d.) consider questions for in-class group discussions.

1. What exactly does Judt mean he writes that “Holocaust recognition” is the “contemporary European entry ticket”? What, according to Judt, are the consequences (within the European Union) of a nation either denying that the Holocaust happened or denying that their nation took part in the Holocaust?
2. I like Judt’s article; I find it well researched and well written. However, I am skeptical about ‘patting Europe on the back’ simply for acknowledging the realities of the Holocaust. After everything we have thought about this semester—colonialism, racism, genocide, nationalism, etc.—why should we be wary of the claim that Europe’s
‘humanity’ has been ‘restored’ in the wake of the Holocaust? (HINT: There is no ‘right’ answer here. I simply cannot help but contrast Judt’s essay with the anti-immigrant sentiment sweeping Europe and America as we speak.)
3. Did the Holocaust end (immediately) with the end of World War II? What forms of injustice did Jews face as they returned to their home countries after being imprisoned in Nazi labor and death camps?
4. What is Judt telling us about the Holocaust as a Europe-wide phenomenon? In other words, were the Germans alone responsible for the Shoah (Holocaust)?
5. What forms of resistance did Primo Levi face as he attempted to find a publisher for his masterwork, Survival in Auschwitz?
6. If one examines the text on pp. 808, it becomes clear that Europeans had (at least) two (if not more) reasons for sheltering themselves behind a veil of ‘collective amnesia’ after the Holocaust. What were these reasons?

7. According to Judt, Germans largely avoided admitting their role in the Holocaust between 1945 and the late-1950s. How and why did this change near the end of the 1950s?
8. For nearly forty years after World War II, Judt writes, the Swiss “basked in their clear conscience and the envious admiration of the world” for not having taken part in the Holocaust. What finally led the Swiss to acknowledge their role in the Holocaust?
9. Why, according to Judt, were the French unable to argue that the murder of French Jews was simply the result of top-down orders issued by the Nazis during the German occupation of France (1940-1944)?
10. Judt warns us that we should be careful to not gratuitously celebrate European acknowledgement of the Holocaust. What, counterintuitively, are the risks associated with nearly every European nation admitting complicity in the Holocaust?
11. Judt makes an admirable effort to trace Holocaust memory (or lack thereof) in the post-1945 Soviet bloc. How did nations throughout Communist Europe (like East Germany and Poland) process the horrors of 1939-1945? How exactly might we define Judt’s term ‘comparative victimhood’?
12. How and in what ways was “Russian memory divided” on the subject of the Holocaust?
13. What role in Western Europe have plaques, memorials, and museums played in forcing Europeans to come to terms with the Holocaust?
14. Read the last full paragraph on page 829 very closely. Why is memory “a poor guide to the past”? In other words, why do we absolutely need history as counterbalance to memory? (These questions links us once again to the very first readings we completed for this class and to numerous discussions we have had throughout the semester.)
15. What exactly does Judt mean when he writes that at least some level of “forgetting is the necessary condition for civic health”? Is he advocating for collective amnesia? If not, what is he arguing?