Karazin University in Cooperation with the Claims Conference is Launching Innovative Courses on Holocaust History

In the 2nd semester, two elective courses are planned within the framework of the cooperation project between V. N. Karazin Kharkiv National University and The Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany (Claims Conference): Rabbi Israel Miller Fund for Shoah Research, Education and Documentation.

• For 3rd-year students: “The Holocaust in European Countries” / Associate Professor Yevhen Zakharchenko.
• For 2nd-year students: “Introduction to Holocaust Studies” / Associate Professor Roman Liubavskyi.

How do ordinary people become killers?

Not monsters. Not psychopaths. Ordinary men and women — teachers, police officers, officials — one day began to beat people, denounce their neighbors, and carry out executions. Others watched. Most remained silent—only a few saved lives.

The Holocaust is the most extensively documented catastrophe in human history, and at the same time one of the hardest to comprehend. Why did it happen? Who made the decisions? Is it possible to understand — not justify, but truly understand — those who killed? And what separates us from them?

These are uncomfortable questions. That is exactly why they must be asked.

Genocide does not begin with gas chambers. It begins with language, laws, and silence. Occupation and dehumanization — these mechanisms did not disappear with Nazism. We see them again today, here and now. This course teaches how to recognize them — in history and in our surroundings.

You will hear the voices of those who survived. You will read documents that turned bureaucracy into murder. And ultimately, you will face a question with no comfortable answer: what would you have done?

The courses are developed according to an innovative American teaching methodology. We warmly invite 2nd- and 3rd-year students to join!