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" The Nazi holocaust "
Landau, Ronnie S.
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Latin Dissertation
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| Record Number
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1099218
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TLets568726
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| Main Entry
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Landau, Ronnie S.
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| Title & Author
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The Nazi holocaust\ Landau, Ronnie S.
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| College
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Middlesex University
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| Date
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1997
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| student score
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1997
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| Degree
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Ph.D.
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| Abstract
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The Nazi Holocaust represents an original, interdisciplinary contribution to the field ofeducation, with special reference to the teaching of the humanities in general, andhistory in particular. Its claim to originality lies in its overall educational conception,in its approach to understanding and transmitting the memory' and lessons of theHolocaust and in its filling a palpable gap.2Before the publication of my work, despite hundreds of volumes devoted at variouslevels to the subject - from fields as disparate as history, psychology, sociology,theology, moral philosophy, literature and jurisprudence - there was no singleaccessible, multidimensional volume for the many hundreds of teachers who were faced- often suddenly, as in the case of Britain - with the intimidating task of teaching thismost complex of subjects; under-informed and under-resourced, they were oftenresigned to teaching it badly or not at allThose works that were available were either too simplistic,4 or were too narrowlyfocused, over-scholasticised and sometimes shrouded in mystification:5 they generallyfailed to take sufficient stock of the fact that the Holocaust had historical andideological antecedents, such decontextualisation 6 being, perhaps, the single mostglaring educational problem I identified; virtually all 'historical' works failed even toask, let alone address, the serious moral and psychological questions raised by thesubject,7 and - most seriously - often formed part of an extremist, partisan andThe Nazi Holocaust represents an original, interdisciplinary contribution to the field ofeducation, with special reference to the teaching of the humanities in general, andhistory in particular. Its claim to originality lies in its overall educational conception,in its approach to understanding and transmitting the memory' and lessons of theHolocaust and in its filling a palpable gap.2Before the publication of my work, despite hundreds of volumes devoted at variouslevels to the subject - from fields as disparate as history, psychology, sociology,theology, moral philosophy, literature and jurisprudence - there was no singleaccessible, multidimensional volume for the many hundreds of teachers who were faced- often suddenly, as in the case of Britain - with the intimidating task of teaching thismost complex of subjects; under-informed and under-resourced, they were oftenresigned to teaching it badly or not at allThose works that were available were either too simplistic,4 or were too narrowlyfocused, over-scholasticised and sometimes shrouded in mystification:5 they generallyfailed to take sufficient stock of the fact that the Holocaust had historical andideological antecedents, such decontextualisation being, perhaps, the single mostglaring educational problem I identified; virtually all 'historical' works failed even toask, let alone address, the serious moral and psychological questions raised by thesubject,7 and - most seriously - often formed part of an extremist, partisan and passionate literature, seemingly unable or unwilling to grapple with its broadereducational meaning [a meaning that I would argue in my book went way beyond theworld of its Jewish victims].My work set out to make good these shortcomings, and to attempt a breakthrough inthe transmission of its most salient messages for all. In a clear, educationallyprovocative, yet scholarly fashion, I sought to mediate between a vast, oftenunapproachable literature, and the hard-pressed teacher and student who wrestle withits meaning. By examining it from different disciplinary perspectives, I also wantedto demonstrate that no one discipline can claim an educational monopoly on thissubject.My work aimed to break new ground in the educational sphere by locating theHolocaust within a number of historically important and educationally desirablecontexts: namely Jewish history, modem German history, genocide in the modemage, and the larger story of human indifference, bigotry and the triumph of ideologyover conscience. It examined the impact and aftermath of the Holocaust, consideringits implications not only for the surviving Jewish world (including the State of Israel)9but for all humanity. In such a highly-charged emotional and intellectual arena, my work aimed, uniquely,to strike an enlightened balance between various Scyllas and Charybdises, standing, asit were, in the educational and historiographical crossfire of often diametrically opposedviews. The philosophical starting-point of my work is that the Holocaust, thoughunquestionably a unique historical event, should not be cordoned off from the rest ofhuman experience and imprisoned within the highly-charged realm of 'Jewishexperience' . It offers a new educational perspective by stressing that the attempt to understand even so appalling a tragedy as the Holocaust is, like all good education,ultimately about the making, and not the breaking, of connections. In short, theHolocaust as educational theme is both unique and universal.
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Middlesex University
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