The course will introduce students to the history of the systematic persecution and murder of the European Jews – and other targeted groups and minorities –between 1933 and 1945, initiated and driven by Nazi Germany. We will examine the roots and dynamics of this historic mass crime, most importantly the relevance of antisemitism, racism and imperialism, and study how it was executed across the continent in context of World War II with the more or less active involvement of local governments and populations. The role of the non- Jewish contemporaries, the so-called bystanders, will be of particular interest. This is an issue at the heart of current historiographical debates on the Holocaust as not only a monstrous political crime committed by a few hundred thousand (Nazi) perpetrators but a transnationally unfolding social as well as interpersonal process. Finally, the course will deal with the global aftermath of this war and genocide – on the legal, cultural and social levels, including the ways in which the Holocaust is being remembered, taught and increasingly contested in educational and memorial-political contexts across Europe and the world. This course will be taught by Professor Christina Morina.