August 29, 1997

Lessons from the Holocaust

Sid Chafetz' drawing of Goebbels' family

Do you want to understand human behavior? Study the Holocaust.

Do you want to explore the origins of evil? Study the Holocaust.

Do you want to discuss fundamental issues of morality and justice? Study the Holocaust.

Moreover, says Professor Emeritus Bernard Schwartz, the study of the Holocaust is essential in a world in which there are so many competing visions of the good life, and in a world in which the fundamental issue is how we are all going to get along.

"The study of the Holocaust helps students develop an understanding of the ramifications of prejudice, racism and stereotyping in any society," says Schwartz, one of the organizers of a major conference on the Holocaust, which will be held on campus, October 29-30.

Law Professor Dr. Ted DeCoste, one of the co-organizers of the conference who also teaches a course called The Holocaust and the Law, says there has been a renewed interest in the study of the subject. It's arisen in the popular culture-witness the popularity of the movie Schindler's List. New books have been written for general readership. The debate about the role of Swiss banks during the war has sparked angry reactions. And scholars have turned their attention to the subject in the post-Cold War period, during which Holocaust studies were de-emphasized.

"When educators teach about the Holocaust, they find most students interested because it raises questions of fairness, justice, individual identity, peer pressure, conformity, indifference and obedience-issues young people confront in their daily lives," says Schwartz.

It's a topic we must return to again and again, adds Dr. John-Paul Himka, a professor of history and classics. He has recently written two articles on the thorny issue of collaboration with the Nazis during the war and conducted a graduate seminar on historical controversies, focusing on the Holocaust.

History 605 demonstrated to graduate students some of the problems associated with conducting historical research, Himka explains. Every point of view has implications. Some of those are frightening, says Himka, who during the course of his own research experienced nightmares. He acknowledges conducting Holocaust research is exhausting and nerve-wracking. "[The course] also helped students think more about their responsibilities as intellectuals."

Long before students end up in Himka's graduate courses, however, they pass through Grade 12. In the Alberta social studies curriculum, the Holocaust is studied in the context of the Second World War. Every year about 1,300 Edmonton Grade 12 students attend an on-campus Holocaust education symposium sponsored in May by The Holocaust Education Committee of the Jewish Federation of Edmonton. Students listen to a keynote speaker, watch films and listen to survivors of the Holocaust recount their experiences.

Those who wish to continue those studies can find within their hometown university library 174 works alone on the Holocaust period of 1939 to 1945. Librarian Alan Rutkowski says the library has a particular emphasis on East European-Jewish relations during the Holocaust, reflecting the scholarship being conducted on campus. Some scholars in the Faculty of Law are engaged in the study of Holocaust denial, and there are library resources to support that scholarship as well.

Organizers are hopeful the upcoming conference will spark more interest, and ultimately, more U of A research on the Holocaust. One of the best ways to examine the idea of the equality of human beings is to look at a society that proposed the exact opposite-a society that denied moral equality on the basis of identity, explains DeCoste. The Holocaust is much more than history, concludes Schwartz. "The Holocaust provokes us to trace significant issues to contemporary society-persistent, complex and demanding concerns-freedom of speech, medical and biomedical issues, hate propaganda and legislation, civil rights both of the dominant culture and of minorities, obligations of citizenship, the content and role of public education," he says. The Holocaust, according to DeCoste and Schwartz, remains the most effective and most extensively documented subject for the examination of basic moral issues.

Exhibit depicts the men who made Hitler possible

The Holocaust must continue to be memorialized so future generations cannot forget the victims or the perpetrators, says Sid Chafetz , an artist who will exhibit his work October 29 to November 8 in the Law Building in conjunction with the Holocaust conference.

"Perpetrators" is an exhibition of original prints depicting the men who made Hitler possible. The starkly rendered portraits, with biographical texts, represent the "ordinary people" who ran the Third Reich.

Art critics and historians have associated Chafetz's work with other artists who tackled social issues. Chafetz says Goya and Rembrandt have influenced him the most.

"In another environment, I might have wanted to concern myself with purely technical, compositional or poetic experiments. At the moment, I can see too many absurd things around me to indulge myself in those luxuries."

Chafetz is also a professor of art at Ohio State University.

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