• Home
• Study
• Study Information
• Modules
• Module Information

The Holocaust and Nazi Occupation of Eastern Europe, 1939-1945: Context

Module description

The Nazi occupation of Eastern Europe between 1939 and 1945 was arguably the most destructive event of the Second World War. Poland and the occupied Soviet republics of Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia became killing fields not only because of the extermination of Polish and Soviet Jewry, but also because of Nazi economic exploitation and mass murder aimed at Poles and Soviet civilians. This module aims to introduce you to the entangled histories of Nazi occupation and genocide in Eastern Europe, through the eyes of German occupiers, Polish and Soviet civilians and the Jews of Eastern Europe.

No knowledge of a foreign language is required.

Module aims - intentions of the module

Together with its co-requisite, the module aims to

• Introduce you to the overlapping histories of the Holocaust and Nazi occupation of Poland and the Soviet Union during the Second World War, of genocide and mass violence in Eastern Europe, and encourage a critical engagement with these histories by applying comparative and transnational perspectives.
• Study the evolution of Nazi occupation policies and the Nazi genocides of Jews, Roma and other victim groups and the phenomena of collaboration, resistance and everyday life as experiences by Jews, Poles, Soviet civilians and Soviet prisoners of war
• Introduce new interpretations and approaches from the fields of Holocaust historiography and the history of Eastern Europe, from Nazi colonialism, the ‘war of annihilation’ in the Soviet Union, civil wars and interethnic violence, genocide studies and the social history of ghettos and occupied societies.
• Engage with contemporary debates in Poland and the former Soviet Union over the legacies of war, occupation and genocide.
• Develop research, analytical, interpretative and communication skills that can be applied in further academic studies or in graduate careers through engaging with the complex historiographies and controversies over different aspects of the Holocaust and Nazi occupation of Eastern Europe between 1939 and 1945

Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)

ILO: Module-specific skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 1. Evaluate the different complex themes in the history of the Holocaust and Nazi occupation of Eastern Europe from a comparative and transnational perspective
• 2. Make a close specialist evaluation of the key developments in the Holocaust and Nazi occupation of Eastern Europe, developed through independent study and seminar work
• 3. Analyse the key developments within the evolution of the Holocaust and Nazi occupation of Eastern Europe between 1939 and 1945
• 4. Follow the changing causes of and responses to Nazi occupation and genocide in Eastern Europe across the period

ILO: Discipline-specific skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 5. Focus on and comprehend complex issues
• 6. Understand and deploy relevant historical terminology in a comprehensible manner

ILO: Personal and key skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 7. Conduct independent and autonomous study and group work, including presentation of material for group discussion, developed through the mode of learning
• 8. Digest, select and organise material to produce, to a deadline, a coherent and cogent argument, developed through the mode of assessment
• 9. Present complex arguments orally

Syllabus plan

The module focuses on the context to the history of the Holocaust and Nazi occupation of Eastern Europe between 1939 and 1945 from the following perspectives, viewed comparatively and transnationally across Poland, Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. While the content may vary from year to year, it is envisioned that it will cover some or all of the following topics:

• Everyday life, collaboration and forced cooperation of Jews, Poles and Soviet civilians under Nazi occupation
• Terror, repression, resistance, partisan and antipartisan warfare
• The Nazi persecution and extermination of Polish and Soviet Jews
• Nazi colonialism and imperialism in Eastern Europe, and policies of annexation, ethnic cleansing and forced resettlement of Jews and non-Jews
• Nazi economic exploitation of Eastern Europe, including the ‘Hunger Plan’ and impressment of Polish and Soviet workers
• Nazi, Soviet and East European nationalist political warfare, propaganda and the battle for ‘hearts and minds’ under occupation
• Civil wars and interethnic violence under Nazi occupation

Some of you will already have studied aspects of the history of the Holocaust and Nazi occupation of Eastern Europe; others will not. The introductory sessions will therefore be important in offering a broad overview within which framework you can place your subsequent work. The co-requisite module will also provide close focus on the historical sources available for the study of the Holocaust and Nazi occupation of Eastern Europe from a transnational and comparative perspective, so complementing this module. The seminars will focus on the central issues in the history of the Holocaust and Nazi occupation of Eastern Europe from a transnational and comparative perspective, allowing you to develop your skills and knowledge more fully. You will be expected to prepare for seminars by reading and evaluating the respective sources in advance, and will discuss the issues raised by them in the seminars.

Learning activities and teaching methods (given in hours of study time)

Details of learning activities and teaching methods

Formative assessment

Summative assessment (% of credit)

Details of summative assessment

Details of re-assessment (where required by referral or deferral)

Re-assessment notes

Deferral – if you miss an assessment for certificated reasons judged acceptable by the Mitigation Committee, you will normally be either deferred in the assessment or an extension may be granted. The mark given for a re-assessment taken as a result of deferral will not be capped and will be treated as it would be if it were your first attempt at the assessment.

Referral – if you have failed the module overall (i.e. a final overall module mark of less than 40%) you will be required to submit a further assessment as necessary. If you are successful on referral, your overall module mark will be capped at 40%.

Indicative learning resources - Basic reading

Basic Reading

• Arad, Yitzhak, The Holocaust in the Soviet Union (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2009)
• Arad, Yitzhak, The Operation Reinhard death camps: Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka (Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 2018)
• Berkhoff, Karel C., Harvest of despair: life and death in Ukraine under Nazi rule (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2004)
• Cohen, Laurie R., Smolensk under the Nazis: everyday life in occupied Russia (Rochester: University of Rochester Press, 2013)
• Epstein, Catherine, Model Nazi: Arthur Greiser and the Occupation of Western Poland (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010)
• Gerlach, Christian, The extermination of the European Jews (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2016)
• Kassow, Samuel D., Who will write our history? Emanuel Ringelblum, the Warsaw Ghetto, and the Oyneg Shabes Archive (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2007/2018)
• Kochanski, Halik, The eagle unbowed: Poland and the Poles in the Second World War (London: Penguin, 2013)
• Lehnstaedt, Stephan, Occupation in the East: The Daily Lives of German Occupiers in Warsaw and Minsk, 1939-1944 (New York: Berghahn, 2016)
• Lower, Wendy, Hitler's furies: German women in the Nazi killing fields (London: Chatto & Windus, 2013)
• Richie, Alexandra, Warsaw 1944: the fateful uprising (London: Collins, 2013)
• Slepyan, Kenneth, Stalin's guerrillas: Soviet partisans in World War II (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2006)

Indicative learning resources - Web based and electronic resources

• ELE: https://vle.exeter.ac.uk/course/view.php?id=11349 
• Yad Vashem Holocaust Resource Center: http://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/holocaust/resource_center/index.asp
• United States Holocaust Memorial Museum: http://www.ushmm.org/

Indicative learning resources - Other resources

• Exeter Electronic Library resources include: ProQuest Theses and Dissertations
• Key journals for the module are available via JSTOR, Project Muse, Taylor & Francis, Cambridge Journals Online, Oxford Journals

Key words search

HIH3317: Holocaust, Nazi occupation, East European History, Jewish History, Poland, USSR, World War II