Holocaust and the Law

Tuition: $400 | YIVO members: $325**
Students: $215 (Must register with valid university email address)

This is a live, online seminar held weekly on Zoom. Enrollment will be capped at about 15 students. All course details (Zoom link, syllabus, handouts, etc.) will be posted to Canvas. Students will be granted access to the class on Canvas after registering for the class here on the YIVO website. This class will be conducted in English.

Instructor: Vanda Rajcan

Course Description:
What is justice and how can it be achieved in post-conflict societies? In addition to the precedent-setting International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg, governments across the world created various legal systems to prosecute individuals for crimes committed between 1933 and 1945. Many trials during the immediate postwar period prioritized political crimes and marginalized Holocaust-related charges. Over the subsequent decades, individuals, organizations, and states have sought to bring alleged perpetrators to justice for crimes against Jews. This seminar explores selected Holocaust trials and their legacies through court records, pre-trial investigations, witness testimonies, and other sources.

The course will begin with the role of law in shaping history, then continue to case studies including the IMT at Nuremberg and the Eichmann Trial, before shifting to Holocaust denial and contemporary quests for justice. We will scrutinize the attempts to prosecute individuals for several types of crimes—ranging from war crimes and genocide to local collaboration—across the European continent and explore the complicated relationships between justice, politics, and memory. We will also examine how postwar societies have used trials to resolve key issues, decide the fates of defendants, educate the public, and form specific narratives about collaboration and complicity during the Holocaust.

Who should take this course?
This class is open to anyone interested in the topic as outlined in the course description. The class discussion will be conducted in English, and all course materials will be read in English or in English translation. No previous background knowledge or specific education level is required.

Course Materials:
The instructor will provide all course materials digitally throughout the class on Canvas.

Dr. Vanda Rajcan is a Chabraja Teaching Postdoctoral Fellow at Northwestern University, specializing in East-Central European history, legal studies, and human rights. Her doctoral research explored how the Slovak government used the postwar People’s Courts to promote and legitimize political, legal, and national agendas after World War II. Her research was supported by number of fellowships, including the Fulbright Research Grant, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, the Auschwitz Jewish Center and Northwestern University. She has presented and published work in English and Slovak and participated in conferences across North America and Europe. Her current project investigates the complicated relationships between justice, nationalism, and collective memory in Slovakia through wartime Aryanization and postwar restitution cases.

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