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Creative responses to the Holocuast: Interacting with artefacts

March 2006: Project update

Deborah Schultz & Chana Moshenska

The first step was to collect student responses to the subject of the Holocaust, and their feelings at the beginning of a course of study. The course the students are taking is a second year option in the School of Humanities: 'Holocaust Representation and Cultural Memory'. We thought this course was the most appropriate one for the project because it is an interdisciplinary course: both the course content and the students' backgrounds providing a broad range of approaches and contexts. The other course we could have based the project on is a History course on the Holocaust which we felt was less suitable because the emphasis is on the facts and the historiography of the Holocaust, rather than creative responses to the memory of the Holocaust. Although students taking both courses exhibit emotional responses to the material there is not the scope to explore it in the History course which is shorter, and assessed by unseen exam rather than by dissertation.

Student responses were recorded in their first seminars. 40 students took part in two seminar groups. In each seminar group the students were divided into small groups to discuss these questions:

• What do you already know about the Holocaust?
• How did you learn what you know about the Holocaust?
• What would you like to learn?

In half the groups there was a scribe who wrote down the other students' responses; in the other half the discussion was recorded. Some of the students chose to record only part of their discussions, when they felt they had reached a conclusion, and the written responses varied in detail. The analysis of the discussions will inform the next stage of our project.

In lectures and seminars issues of Holocaust representation - forms and challenges - have been explored. We have looked at literary responses, film, music, oral testimony, diaries and art. We have also allowed for emotional and personal responses to the material the students have encountered. The next step in the project is to extend seminar discussion with hands-on contact with an art collection: the Daghani collection held at the University of Sussex library. In the summer term we will offer three afternoon workshops for students who will be encouraged to reflect creatively both on the artist's, and on their, responses to the Holocaust.

In the final part of the project we will collate their responses, looking at how they applied their personal interaction with the art works through discussions and their final written work. We hope this will lead us to further understanding of how students can creatively incorporate their reflections in the research and writing of their dissertations, and the ways in which this approach will challenge current assessment procedures.

Illustrations reproduced by kind permission of the Arnold Daghani Collection

Final Report

Launch Presentation