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Mastering the Past? Nazism and the Holocaust in West German History Textbooks of the 1960s

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Book cover As the Witnesses Fall Silent: 21st Century Holocaust Education in Curriculum, Policy and Practice

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Abstract

This chapter overturns the conventional picture of West German textbooks and their treatment of the Holocaust and its antecedents during the 1960s. It draws attention to changes, too often overlooked by scholars, in the narrative, design, and pedagogy of these publications. In particular, this study concentrates on the inclusion of primary sources, photographs, and discussion questions for use in the classroom. The chapter argues that these textbooks encouraged students to challenge not just the predominant societal discourses around the Holocaust and treatment of Jews, but even familiar authority figures at school and at home.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of History, Christopher Newport University, 1 Avenue of the Arts, Newport News, VA, 23606, USA

    Brian M. Puaca

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  1. Brian M. Puaca
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Correspondence to Brian M. Puaca .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. School of Education, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan, Israel

    Zehavit Gross

  2. College of Education, University of South Carolina, Columbia, South Carolina, USA

    E. Doyle Stevick

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Puaca, B.M. (2015). Mastering the Past? Nazism and the Holocaust in West German History Textbooks of the 1960s. In: Gross, Z., Stevick, E. (eds) As the Witnesses Fall Silent: 21st Century Holocaust Education in Curriculum, Policy and Practice. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-15419-0_20

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