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Interpretative paradigms
All textbooks except T4 use the terms holocausto and genocidio. Other references include
‘physical extermination of the Jews’ (T1), ‘extermination’, ‘massacre’, ‘total dehumanization’
(T2) or ‘genocide of the Jewish population’ (T2) or of ‘the Jews’ (T5). A wide range of documents
includes photographs, posters, maps, propaganda, paintings, historical publications, film
stills and caricatures. The treatment of terminology, ideology, camps and types of persecution
is generally thorough, though not consistent. T5 proceeds chronologically, for example,
while T4 focuses mainly on camps; T2 deals with the events primarily in the form of didactic
exercises, and T1, T3 and T4 do so within thematic boxes set aside from the main text and
discussing ‘genocide and deportations’ and ‘education for subhumans’ (T1), the ‘Nuremberg
Trials’ (T3) and ‘concentration camps’ (T4). T1, T2 and T3 contextualize the Holocaust within
the Second World War; T4 illustrates the event by focusing on Auschwitz, while T5 relativizes
the event in relation to fascism in general. More explicit explanations of the causes of the
Holocaust are political (where the Holocaust is ascribed indirectly to a constitutional fault
under the Weimar Republic in T2 and T4), economic (T1, T2, T3 and T5), racial (all books), or
else framed in terms of totalitarianism (T3 and T4), territorial expansionism (T1, T2 and T5)
and/or Hitler’s personal will (T2 and T5). Nonetheless, neither individual perpetrators (except
Hitler in T2 and T5) nor victims (except Primo Levi in T3) play a central role in the narratives;
explanations of motivations of perpetrators or bystanders are correspondingly sparse, and
are confined to references to people’s fear of repression or of the German population. T4
and T5 correspondingly explain the event in terms of rationalization, that is, as a result of the
exact planning of the functions of camps. The books contain between two and eight images
and a number of iconic images such as the yellow star and book burning (T1), emaciated
prisoners or survivors (T2, T3, T4 and T5) and the boycotting of shops (T5). Images of victims
are generally black and white, while those of perpetrators are in colour, and some captions
are omitted in T5. The textbooks contain several complex metanarratives engaging with the
memory or transmission of knowledge about the Holocaust via a section about education
under the Nazi regime (T1 and T2), quotations from Michael Burleigh, Daniel Goldhagen
and the Convention for the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide of 1948
and a still from Charlie Chaplin’s film The Great Dictator (T2), the Nuremberg Trials (T3),
photographs of Yad Vashem (T4) and an extract from the Auschwitz memorial guidebook (T5).
T2 addresses the utility of fostering memory of ‘extreme human brutality’, and T4 requires
pupils to search the internet and write down their opinion about the current function of the
Yad Vashem memorial.
Narrative structure and point of view
The proportion of space devoted to authorial text varies considerably, from 15 percent in T5
and 20 percent in T3 to 50 percent in T4, 60 percent in T1 and 70 percent in T2. Despite this,
all books provide multiple viewpoints via historical documents, except perhaps T4, which
provides only visual documentation in the form of maps and photographs. All authors use
the passive mode, avoid emotive language (only T4 and T5 contain judgmental adjectives),
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