1998

Holocaust's striking images saved on film

by Abby Holtam

Who could ever forget the young child wearing the red coat in the film "Schindler's List?" The same young girl is later seen being wheeled out of the ghetto amongst a pile of bodies. Her red coat stands out from the stark black and white images that surround her.

After the film stopped rolling many people still carried the image of that tiny child with them. The Center for Holocaust, Genocide and Peace Studies has put together a collection of films and documentaries entitled "The Holocaust" that gives students a chance more deeply explore and reflect on some of the issues that surrounded Germany, Jews and the world during World War II.

The films show every Monday at 6:30 p.m. in the Film Projection Room in the Getchell Library. These images are meant to provoke thought, to educate and to introduce students to different aspects of the de Holocaust through diversity, racial equality and understanding.

Dr. Viktoria Hertling, the center's director, believes that films and documentaries are a valuable learning tool for students and an important medium for expression.

"Films show ethics and morality in a different way than books and lectures do," Dr. Hertling said. "Watching films sometimes gives students a better understanding of what has happened and they give meaning to abstract ideas and thoughts."

John Ford, an English literature major, believes movies give students a different outlook on things they are told and things they read.

"When you see a film, you get an artist's t point of view versus the memoir point of view that you get you get from a book," Ford said. "Images seem to have more power."

The remaining nine films in the Holocaust film series will show until the middle of December. Such classics such as "Casablanca", the World War II refugee drama with Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman and "The Great Dictator", Charlie Chaplin's classic satire on Nazi-Germany and Hitler, have been used to introduce students to various ideas on the Holocaust and how the world reacted to what was happening in Europe during this time.

The next film, "Life is Beautiful", Benigni's masterpiece about a family in Italy trying to survive the war and the concentration camp, will show at 6:30 p.m. today.

When Maggie Eirenschmalz, an English s literature major, was in the sixth grade in Germany when the movie "Europa, Europa" came out. She remembers not being allowed to see it.

"I remember I was in the sixth grade and my parents forbid me to see the movie," Eirenschmalz said. "They said it was a Hitler Youth movie and that I was too young to see it."

Dr, Hertling coincides the broadcast of , the films to go along with what her students are reading in their Holocaust Literature class.

"The movies thematically interface with the curriculum of the Holocaust Literature class and they give students the opportunity to see what we discuss in class in a different medium," said Dr. Hertling.

Dr. Hertling stresses that students need, not be involved in the Holocaust classes at the University to appreciate and understand what the films are portraying and the messages that are being conveyed.

"No matter what students are studying, these films give them an opportunity to explore different topics and issues involving ethics and morality," Dr. Hertling said.

"Every student comes to view the films with a different set of knowledge and different assumptions."

The last film to show in the series, "The Wave," was selected by Heinz Boesch, an Austrian intern with The Center for Holocaust, Genocide and Peace Studies, to illustrate how easy it is for people to be pulled into another's ideology.

"This very contemporary films show how a leader can influence younger people today to follow a certain ideology," Boesch said. "The film is about how a high school teacher in the U.S. applied the techniques of Hitler to the modern life of his classroom. He acted like he was part of a movement and began to influence the actions and ideas of the teenagers with his ideals."

These films are all first class movies and most are award winners, according to Dr. Hertling. She hopes that students who watch these films will get a better understanding of what happen during this unforgettable time in history. For more information on the films call The Center for Holocaust, Genocide and Peace Studies at 784-6767.