Study information

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

Module titleThe Holocaust and Nazi Occupation of Eastern Europe, 1939-1945
Module codeHIH3423
Academic year2025/6
Credits60
Module staff

Dr Nicholas Terry (Convenor)

Duration: Term123
Duration: Weeks

10

10

Number students taking module (anticipated)

18

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 students 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

The module aims to

  • Introduce students 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.
  • Engage with published and translated source collections as well as a growing number of online digital archives, making use of many personal documents such as contemporary diaries, letters, manuscripts and post-war memoirs, as well as official sources including SS and other Nazi records, the archives of Jewish councils and ghettos, photographs, interrogations and trial transcripts

Through engaging with the complex historiographies and controversies and working with the extensive primary source collections, the module aims to develop research, analytical, interpretative and communication skills that can be applied in further academic studies or in graduate careers.

Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)

ILO: Module-specific skills

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

  • 1. Have a detailed knowledge of the historiographical themes and different sources available for the study of the Holocaust and Nazi occupation of Eastern Europe from a comparative and transnational perspective, together with a very close specialist knowledge of those sources which the students focus upon in their seminar presentations and written work
  • 2. Ability to make close specialist evaluation of the key developments within the period, developed through independent study and seminar work.

ILO: Discipline-specific skills

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

  • 3. Ability to focus on and comprehend complex issues.
  • 4. Ability to 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...

  • 5. Independent and autonomous study and group work, including presentation of material for group discussion, developed through the mode of learning
  • 6. Ability to digest, select and organise material to produce, to a deadline, a coherent and cogent argument, developed through the mode of assessment
  • 7. Ability to 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 the students 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 all students can place their subsequent work. Seminar will provide a 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. Students 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)

Scheduled Learning and Teaching ActivitiesGuided independent studyPlacement / study abroad
805200

Details of learning activities and teaching methods

CategoryHours of study timeDescription
Scheduled Learning and Teaching8040 x 2 hour seminars
Guided Independent Study520Reading and preparation for seminars, coursework and presentations

Formative assessment

Form of assessmentSize of the assessment (eg length / duration)ILOs assessedFeedback method
Seminar discussionOngoing through course.1-5, 7Verbal from tutor and fellow students.
Written work500-1000 words1-6Verbal and written.

Summative assessment (% of credit)

CourseworkWritten examsPractical exams
70030

Details of summative assessment

Form of assessment% of creditSize of the assessment (eg length / duration)ILOs assessedFeedback method
Portfolio70Portfolio of THREE or FOUR pieces of written work, totalling 8,000 words. At least one of these pieces will require students to engage with primary source material in a sustained and detail manner.1-6Verbal and written.
Individual Presentation30Individual, oral presentation. 20 minutes, + 10 minutes leading discussion, + supporting materials [equivalent total word count: 3,000 words]1-7Verbal and written.

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

Original form of assessmentForm of re-assessmentILOs re-assessedTimescale for re-assessment
Portfolio assignmentPortfolio assignment (8000 words)1-6Referral/deferral period
PresentationWritten transcript (2000 words + 1000 word supporting materials)1-7Referral/deferral period

Re-assessment notes

The re-assessment consists of a 8,000 word portfolio of source work, as in the original assessment, but replaces the individual presentation with a written script that could be delivered in such a presentation and which is the equivalent of 20 minutes of speech plus supporting materials (3,000 words).

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

  • 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)
  • 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)
  • Kay, Alex J., Empire of Destruction: A History of Nazi Mass Killing (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2021)
  • Lehnstaedt, Stephan, Occupation in the East: The Daily Lives of German Occupiers in Warsaw and Minsk, 1939-1944 (New York: Berghahn, 2016)
  • Slepyan, Kenneth, Stalin's guerrillas: Soviet partisans in World War II (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2006)
  • Trunk, Isaiah, Judenrat: the Jewish councils in Eastern Europe under Nazi occupation (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1996)
  • Winstone, Martin, The dark heart of Hitler's Europe: Nazi rule in Poland under the General Government (London: I.B. Tauris, 2015)

Source Editions

  • Jewish Responses to Persecution, Volumes I-V (Lanham, MD: AltaMira, 2010-2015)
  • The Persecution and Murder of the European Jews, Vols 4, 7-10 (Berlin: DeGruyter Oldenbourg, 2020-present)

Indicative learning resources - Web based and electronic resources

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/

Open access digital archives indexed at https://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot.com/p/open-access-holocaust-sources-and.html

Indicative learning resources - Other resources

Exeter Electronic Library databases including ProQuest Theses and Dissertations, Prosecuting the Holocaust,

Key journals for the module are available via JSTOR, Project Muse, Taylor & Francis, Cambridge Journals Online, Oxford Journals

  • Testaments to the Holocaust (Archives Unbound); Foreign Broadcast Information Service Reports (1941-1996); New York Times; Guardian; The Times; Pravda, Izvestiia

Key words search

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

Credit value60
Module ECTS

30

Module pre-requisites

None

Module co-requisites

None

NQF level (module)

6

Available as distance learning?

No

Origin date

31/01/2025

Last revision date

14/02/2025