History of genocide course at Stockton university’s Kramer Hall
Wednesday, July 24, 2019 • The Hammonton Gazette • Page 3
STOCKTON, from Page 1
University Center on Successful
aging (SCOSa) coordinated and
sponsored a lecture at Kramer
Hall, during which Stockton
adjunct faculty member Doug
Cervi spoke about the history of
the Holocaust and genocide, and
how they’re both still relevant to
this day. Cervi has more than 45
years of experience as a history
teacher, specializing in World War
ii history and Holocaust/genocide
studies. He also helped rewrite
New
Jersey’s
statewide
curriculum
for
Holocaust/genocide studies.
Cervi’s presentation, titled “the
Holocaust: then and Now,”
outlined the definitions of
“holocaust” and “genocide,”
observed the factors the have
caused genocides to take place
throughout the 20th and 21st
centuries, as well as aspects of the
current geopolitical climate that
could breed more genocides in the
future.
according to the presentation, a
genocide is defined as “an act
committed with intent to destroy,
in whole or in part, a national,
ethical, racial or religious group.”
the term “Holocaust” predates
“genocide,” and is most
commonly used when referring to
“the systematic, bureaucratic,
state-sponsored persecution and
murder of approximately six
million Jews by the Nazi regime
and its collaborators during World
War ii” (also known as “the
Shoah”).
Cervi said that although the
Holocaust is the most infamous
genocide in history, it was not the
first, citing earlier examples, such
as the man-made Soviet Ukrainian
famine (1932-1933) that killed
approximately seven million
people; the armenian Genocide
(1915-1923), during which
approximately
1.5
million
armenian citizens were killed by
the turkish government under the
Ottoman empire; and the Herero
and Nama Genocide (1904-1905)
that was waged by the German
empire, killing approximately
60,000 people from the Herero,
Nama and San ethnic groups of
German South West africa
(present-day Namibia).
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the majority of Cervi’s using anti-semitism as a crutch for
presentation pertained to the his own shortcomings and
Holocaust carried out by adolf hardships during the early portion
Hitler during World War ii, which of his life.
Cervi said he believes to be the
“He buys into the anti-semitism
most consequential period in because the Jews, as he views
history—and one that students them, have everything he wants:
must be educated about now more they have nice families, they have
than ever due to the atrocities that money, they have social status,
are still taking place around the they’re cultured, they go to the
world.
opera, they go to plays, they have
“i’ve been teaching this along nice clothes—everything he wants
with World War ii, which i think but doesn’t have,” Cervi said.
in 1914, a downtrodden
are probably the two most
important events in human Hitler—on the verge of suicide
history, but it’s a brutal situation after the death of his parents and
that still unfortunately exists failing to get into art school for the
second time, according to Cervi—
today,” Cervi said.
Cervi chronicled the life of decided to join the military during
Hitler and the sequence of events World War i in an attempt to gain
that allowed his to rise to power as some semblance of an identity and
leader of the Nazi Party (National purpose.
Socialist German Workers’ Party)
after Germany lost the war to
and eventually the Chancellor and france, Cervi said that Hitler was
fuhrer of Germany. He described devastated, and eventually began
Hitler as an individual with a to pin the loss of the war, as well
distorted view of the world as a as Germany’s ensuing economic
constant struggle in which only downfall and the poor decisions of
the strongest survive, which Cervi the Weimar republic (Germany’s
attributed to Hitler’s traumatic government from 1918 until the
upbringing by his father, who was rise of Nazi Germany in 1933) all
an alcoholic that abused him and on the influence of Jewish
his mother. a few years after capitalism.
losing his father at an early age,
approximately 10 years prior to
Hitler’s mother died of breast the rise of Hitler’s Nazi Germany,
cancer, which greatly traumatized he and his political associates
him and changed his view on the planned to seize the Bavarian city
of Munich and use it as a base for
world.
Cervi said that Hitler began See KRAMER HALL, Page 10
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