History 323: The Holocaust Prof. Popkin S2003

Topics for 1st Essay (due in class, Thurs., Feb. 13)

For your essay, you will need to find a partner among the other students in the class. You and your partner will work together to write a set of letters on one of the following topics. There should be at least three letters from each of you, and you should be sure that the letters respond to one anotherBthat is, that the second letter in the series answers questions and issues raised in the first, that the response addresses these answers, and so forth. Your essays should draw on specific information about what was happening to the German Jews that is found in the assigned readings from the Dawidowicz source book, Kaplan’s Between Dignity and Despair, and the class handouts. They should also show a clear awareness of the changing conditions for Jews in Germany between 1933 and 1938, and the way in which Jews’ attitudes would have evolved during this period—in other words, don’t just repeat the same arguments in each letter.

Your three letters should total 4-6 pp (double-spaced)Bin other words, you and your partner should submit between 8 and 12 pp in total.

Your grade will be determined as follows: 50% common grade for how well the whole set of letters fulfills the assignment; 50% individual grade for quality of writing. In other words, it is in your interest to help each other do as well as possible!

Topic 1: A German Jewish family discusses emigration: create a series of letters between two members of a German Jewish family (either husband and wife, or parent and teenaged child), in which one person gives reasons why the family should try to leave Germany as soon as possible, while the other disagrees. The first exchange of letters should be from the period between Jan. 1933 and Sept. 1935; the second from Sept. 1935 to Oct. 1938; and the third after Kristallnacht in Nov. 1938.

Topic 2: An American Southerner writes to a German-Jewish pen-pal: create a series of letters between someone from the American South, where laws mandating racial segregation governed every aspect of life, and a German Jew confronting the three stages of German persecution of the Jews (Jan. 33BSept. 35; Sept. 35BOct. 38; Nov. 38B1941). What would such an American and such a German Jew have had to say to each other? Your >American= character may be either white or black. He or she may or may not have visited Hitler=s Germany (as an exchange student? to attend the 1936 Olympics?)

NB Some students have found it convenient to do this assignment by emailing letters to each other and submitting print-outs of the result (please don=t send me the emails!) If you do the assignment this way, you need not double-space the printouts. Please do pay attention to spelling and grammar, though!