Introduction: Memory and Reflection

During the spring semester of 2014, Old Dominion University offered a Study Abroad course called “Paris/Auschwitz” that I designed with funding from the Curt C. and Else Silberman Foundation and the Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Over spring break, I led a group of eighteen students to France and Poland to study sites of Holocaust memory along with faculty team member, Dr. Brett Bebber. Dr. Bebber and I are both professors in the Department of History. The Study Abroad course was part of my attempt to create more Holocaust courses at Old Dominion University for the History major and Jewish Studies minor as well as contribute to the University’s emphasis on innovative international programming through Study Abroad. In addition, we secured funding from the Tidewater Jewish Foundation to support one student scholarship for the class and trip, and honor student and college senior Emma Needham won the scholarship. We also embedded service learning and interfaith activities into the course with post-trip opportunities for reflective commentary at an event organized on campus and another one held at a local synagogue, Temple Israel in Norfolk. Students produced research papers as part of the course, and the finest two undergraduate papers are published here. This journal also includes student “Reflections” produced for the post-trip campus event held on April 9, 2014. The Study Abroad class included thirteen undergraduate and five graduate students, and while this is an undergraduate research journal, we are publishing the reflection pieces of the entire group