The holocaust

The life of the Greenman family

Leon Greenman was a British-born Jew living in the Netherlands whose entire family was arrested by the Nazis, deported to Auschwitz, and subjected to the horrors of the concentration camp system.

The concept of persecution

The systematic, deliberate ill-treatment and oppression of an individual or an entire social group, typically motivated by differences in race, religion, or political beliefs.

The concept of antisemitism

Hostility, deep prejudice, discrimination, or outright hatred directed specifically against Jewish people as an ethnic, cultural, or religious group.

An understanding of what makes someone Jewish (their ethno-religious identity)

A multifaceted identity combining religious beliefs in Judaism with shared ancestry, historical traditions, language, and global cultural heritage.

Examples of persecution and antisemitism

Historical acts ranging from medieval pogroms and the denial of civil rights to the Nazi-era Nuremberg Laws, forced ghettoization, and violent destruction of Jewish businesses [cite_id: 2].

The concept of propaganda

Biased, misleading, or outright false information systematically spread by a state or political organization to manipulate public opinion and advance a specific ideological agenda.

Examples of propaganda and their effects, including dehumanisation

Nazi newspapers like Der Stürmer and state films that portrayed Jews as subhuman parasites, conditioning the general public to accept radical violence and discrimination.

An understanding of how Nazi propaganda used historical events to further antisemitic stereotypes

Weaponized long-standing European religious myths, economic scapegoating, and conspiracy theories regarding historical plagues or financial crashes to frame Jews as a historical threat to Germany.

An understanding of the events of the Final Solution

The state-sponsored, systematic industrial genocide planned at the 1942 Wannsee Conference, resulting in the murder of six million European Jews in extermination camps like Auschwitz-Birkenau.

An understanding of the problem of evil, and how it relates to the Holocaust

A profound philosophical and theological crisis questioning how an all-powerful, all-loving God could permit the extreme, industrialized suffering and slaughter of millions of innocent human beings.

Different responses to the problem of evil, including Jewish thinkers and philosophers

Theories ranging from the idea that God chose to hide His face (Hester Panim) to secular conclusions that traditional religious frameworks were completely shattered by the reality of the death camps.

The concept of moral responsibility

The philosophical duty of individuals to answer for their actions or failures to act, determining praise, blame, and complicity within a moral framework.

The concept of perpetrators, collaborators, bystanders and rescuers & resistors

Perpetrators actively drove the mass killings; collaborators assisted the regime; bystanders watched silently without acting; rescuers hid victims, while resistors actively fought back.

Examples of perpetrators, collaborators, bystanders and rescuers & resistors

SS officers commanded camps (perpetrators), local police forces assisted in roundups (collaborators), ordinary citizens turned a blind eye (bystanders), Miep Gies hid Anne Frank's family (rescuers), and Jewish partisans launched ghetto uprisings (resistors).

Different perspectives on who had ultimate moral responsibility for the Holocaust

Debates over whether absolute blame rests solely with Hitler and top Nazi leadership (intentionalist view) or spreads across ordinary citizens, institutions, and structural bureaucracies that kept the system running smoothly (structuralist view).

Different perspectives on the most appropriate way to remember the Holocaust, including the ideas of Kurt Vonnegut, Theodor Adorno, Elie Wiesel

Wiesel argued that silence encourages the killer and memory is a sacred duty; Adorno famously stated that writing poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric; Vonnegut explored the tragic, absurd limits of human comprehension in facing industrial massacre.

Examples of different Holocaust memorials

Diverse architectural tributes including the stark, disorienting concrete pillars of the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe in Berlin, preserved historical ruins of death camps, and personal "stumbling stones" (Stolpersteine) placed outside victims' former homes.