Project Design

For my final project, I am arguing the importance of the controversial book written by David S. Wyman entitled The Abandonment of the Jews: America and the Holocaust, 1939-1945. The author argues about the lack of effort by the United States to rescue many thousands of Jews during the Holocaust and what could have been done.

I hope to incorporate many arguments by the Holocaust historians that I have researched that discussed his book and what scholarship they created in response to his book. I would like to make this project simple to navigate on the web with tabs for each author and what their arguments were about Wyman's book. If I can include pictures to associate a name with a face of each historian and what books they have written, that would make this much more organized for the viewer to examine. I would also try to include the most interesting information and not make the website too sparse either.

I have to examine the information and decide what is worth including that a viewer would enjoy reading and not skip over. I want to make the website have a straightforward purpose and not include anything too flashy or distracting as well. The site needs to be professional in its appearance and in its inclusion of information, which is very important to me above anything else.

I would also have to give a detailed explanation of who David S. Wyman is and exactly what his argument in his book is about, which would be the first area I need to display. The viewer would need to understand what type of person this author is so a Curriculum Vitae would be necessary, especially a link to Wyman's website which is the David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies, provided here, http://www.wymaninstitute.org/. This website gives viewers a much more comprehensive look at what Wyman has studied and how that his been incorporated into his book that I have examined. There are many photographs, newspaper articles, conferences, and information about other works Wyman has published which would give the viewer a complete understanding about the author and make an excellent transition into what The Abandonment of the Jews: America and the Holocaust, 1939-1945 is actually about. I would have to attempt to do the same for the other historians but more briefly. I would give a short biography on each historian and then explain what their arguments against Wyman's book are too.

This project must be easy for me to create and maintain at an ongoing basis from now until it is due in August. Even the simple aspects of this website that I need to create and examine must be viewable for everyone, including the background, color scheme, font, etc. I will make sure that everything works properly to my knowledge of computers and learn along the way how to digitize the information I have.

Taken straight from the syllabus for this course, I also need to concentrate on how design and the medium affect the interpretive work and its relationship to the historiography. This statement has really interested me because I am not sure yet how I will do that but I will figure it out. I know that with Holocaust history, much of the information is presented on the web, especially from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum site, provided here, http://ushmm.org. I will definitely include this link on my website for viewers to look at so they can examine additional information about the Holocaust, as it provides a plethora of sources ranging from a wide variety of topics about the Holocaust, including mine. There are videos, pictures, accounts from victims, research, and much more that educators and the like can explore via this website which I think will be very useful for my project.