Assignment Question
About this Assignment: Throughout History 311, you have learned about Nazi racial ideology and antisemitism, the alienation and persecution of Europe’s Jews between 1933 and 1945, and the policies and practices used by Nazi Germany to enact the ‘Final Solution to the Jewish Question’ during World War II. This assignment requires you to use the knowledge you have cultivated in this course to analyze primary documents from the 1930s and 1940s. You are expected to select and discuss letters, diaries, reports, or newspaper articles to assess how Nazi rhetoric and policies impacted Jewish persons and communities in Germany and the rest of Europe before and during World War II. While you may use a limited number of secondary sources to help contextualize events, the majority of your essay should focus on the information obtained from reading the primary documents. This assignment will require the use of primary sources. Primary sources are first-hand testimony of a topic that were created at the time of an event by people with direct connections to that event. To learn more about how to find a primary source, take a look at this lesson Where to Find Primary Sources: Helping Students with Research. One resource you might use to find primary sources are the documents provided here by Yad Vashem.
Prompts: Using the primary documents compose 1,000-1,250-word essay in response to the following essay prompt: Prompt 3 Choose at three primary sources and discuss at least two examples of how Jews and non-Jews in Europe resisted the deportation and mass murder of the continent’s Jews. At least two sources and one example should focus on the perspectives and activities of Jewish persons. Be sure to contextualize each example and source; for instance, if you use a diary entry from a survivor who describes his escape from Treblinka, you should explain what Treblinka was (i.e., its location and its functions) and how it was related to Operation Reinhard. In your conclusion, assess what you think is the most significant document you examined and explain how the document effectively shows the ways in which Jews and non-Jews resisted the ‘Final Solution’ during World War II.
Formatting & Sources: Write your paper in the Chicago Manual of Style (CMS) format. As part of your research, you may refer to the course material for supporting evidence, but you must also use at least two primary and three secondary sources and cite them using CMS format as well. Include a mix of both primary and secondary sources, with at least one source from a scholarly peer-reviewed journal. If you use any Study.com lessons as sources, also cite them in CMS (including the lesson title and instructor’s name). Primary sources are first-hand accounts such as interviews, advertisements, speeches, company documents, statements, and press releases published by the company in question. Secondary sources come from peer-reviewed scholarly journals, such as the Journal of Management. You may use like JSTOR, Google Scholar, and Social Science Research Network to find articles from these journals. Secondary sources may also come from reputable websites with .gov, .edu, or .org in the domain. (Wikipedia is not a reputable source, though the sources listed in Wikipedia articles may be acceptable.) If you’re unsure about how to use CMS format for your paper and sources, see the following lessons: What Is the Chicago Citation Style? Chicago Formatting: Style & Definition
