• printer friendly
• mail this article
• iPod format
• digg

Photo

Students crowd the floor in German 59 and even spill out into the hallway. The class has seen its

The atrocities of the Holocaust often disturb and repulse the sensibilities of most people.

But if students had walked, or at least tried to walk, into Tuesday’s German 59: Holocaust in Film and Literature lecture, one would deduce the subject matter to be much more alluring.

With students sitting, standing, leaning or crouching on seemingly every step, chair and tile, the lecture hall was packed.

By far the largest undergraduate German class at UCLA, the course has 239 students officially enrolled. Last year, 74 students enrolled.

Because of the large demand for spaces, the class will be moved from Franz Hall to a larger classroom in Young Hall when it reconvenes Thursday.

Given that so many students have gravitated to a class focusing on one of the darkest moments of human history, Vic Fusilero, a teaching assistant and German graduate student, said reasons for the class’s popularity could lie in the lessons it has to offer.

“It’s a time of genocide in the world, and it’s something we can learn from,” Fusilero said.

“The Hutus and Tutsis in southern Africa, the Balkans, Kurds – it still happens,” he said.

Some students drew parallels to the content of the class to the modern-day prevalence of war.

Sandra Rodriguez, a first-year undeclared student, said the course’s exploration of the Holocaust drew her to seek a better understanding of why and how the Holocaust happened.

“Wars still exist and you’d think people would’ve learned something,” Rodriguez said, adding that the extent of death that took place was another aspect drawing her to the class.

The lecture is taught by Todd Presner, an assistant professor in Germanic languages and Jewish studies.

Using a computer and an overhead projector, Presner explained the process of dehumanization the Nazis employed in their quest to exterminate Jews and others considered by the Nazis as “undesirables.”

Presner compared how some social aspects of concentration camps radically differ from life in the United States.

“When you think of society, we have hospitals, libraries and other institutions. Their goal is to promote life. They want you to live. But in a concentration camp, everything is designed to lead to your death,” he said.

Despite the course’s grim subject matter, Presner hopes his students will make positive connections between the content of the class and their daily lives.

“(I hope they acquire) a sense of being human. To recognize other people’s dignity, worth, difference and the fact we live in a world where people are different than us,” Presner said.