The Gorizia Catholic Church

Rebuilt by Mussolini in the 40s.

The Gorizia Synagogue

Now a community center, the synagogue is now open only one day a month.

Finally some photographs...and sunshine

We were finally able to take an official tour of Gorizia largely because the students will be making documentary films of locations and telling the stories related to those locations.

Here are some of the locations that we photographed. Actually the first image is of the special birthday dessert that Angela Dalle Vacche, the program director, requested for one of the students.

Rain, Rain, Go Away

For all of you who were/are envying me my odyssey to sunny Italy, the title says it all. Must be punishment for all the years I've gone to England and found it sunny and clear.

Had brought a cheap poncho and an umbrella but had to lend the poncho to a student who didn't even have a jacket. Guess I'll be picking up another umbrella as Jay and I can't really stay even half dry under my small umbrella. However, until I do so, Jay is pretty much confined to the hotel room. He worries that my buying another umbrella will drive the rain away. I say that would definitely be a good thing!

Rain or no rain, I am off to my first day of classes.

More anon.

Still Raining

So whatever happened to sunny Italy? It's not just any rain, but thunderstorms!

Undaunted, Jay and I along with three intrepid students went out for lunch today, where we got very good pizza.

I suspect that this afternoon's trip will be cancelled, however, as no one really wants to brave the rain. Eventually we will all become familiar with Gorizia. Perhaps not just yet.

Safely in Italy

And only minor adventures, including problems getting the special Italian phone set up and running. Oh, yes, and the biggest adventure was that I was supposed to meet a student carrying lots of program equipment. The student decided not to wait (and had turned off his cell phone), so Jay and I waited in the main lobby of the airport until the very last minute. Fortunately Jay had given another student his cell number. As a result we were among the last people to get on the plane.

The plane ride itself was uneventful--though Jay and I sat with a lovely older gentleman who had been in Northern Italy with the Occupation and had written a book on his experiences (one side in English, the other translated into Italian), which he let me read on the flight. Fortunately it was a short book, and the movies being shown were unremarkable. He and his family come back almost every year.

One more small adventure when Jay and I went on to the train station in Maestre instead of waiting for the students (whom we assumed had already gone ahead while we waited to collect Jay's really big bag). No one was terribly inconvenienced--though at least one student has threatened to include me in his documentary and title it Where is Professor Senf? I'm seriously hoping that these will be the most remarkable adventures of the trip.

Ready to Go

Yesterday there was just way too much to do. Now that I'm packed (and don't want to unpack anything), I'd just as soon be on my way.

Looking forward to delicious pasta and gelato as well as the opportunity to see more of Italy.

Two Days Till D-Day

Sure don't feel that I'm ready to go. However, the best thing about a definite deadline is that I'll have to be. At least, I'll have clean underwear.

The class is fully immersed in thinking about documentary film and before we leave for Italy will have had the chance to see portions of Shoah and The Sorrow and the Pity, with Night and Fog left for the last assignment in the term. It's interesting that Patricia Aufderheide, who wrote Documentary Film: A Very Short Introduction, concludes her discussion with a list of One Hundred Great Documentaries. Even in a super short class, we will watch two of them (Triumph of the Will and Night and Fog) in their entirety and watch clips from two more.

And I finally decided that it's ok to show clips of very good movies. Yesterday in class, we watched about 45 minutes of The Pianist, which is remarkable in terms of both content and cinematography.

We also watched Louis Malle's Au revoir les enfants in its entirety, and I was also struck once again with what a fine film it is as well. The children at the school struck me as being "real kids," and Malle does justice both to their comparative innocence (or lack of understanding) and to the equally troubled adults around them.

If it appears that the class is doing nothing but watching movies, it's not true. We are also reading quite a bit of history and film criticism as well. What's so interesting is to see how early representations of the Holocaust tended to be very black and white--with Evil Nazis and Good (Poles, Italians, Jews, French, everyone else) and how more recent films tend to be a bit more nuanced. And no I don't think it's because we as a culture have somehow become more intelligent or more sophisticated. We do, however, have access to more information.

One Week Down, Five to Go

And the best yet to come I might add.

So far have been impressed with the thoughtfulness expressed by students. Indeed, when I think about the young people with whom I’m in contact—both my own children and my students—I have hope for the future. My cynical side notes that intelligent people are often in the minority—look at American elections as an example—and that lazy people often prefer to have someone else to do the thinking for them. So I talk to the young people I know and am comforted that my future is in good hands. Then I read the newspaper or listen to the news and want to crawl under the nearest rock!

We watched Triumph of the Will on Thursday, something that everyone should do at least once in a lifetime. One student remarked that we can no longer take Hitler seriously since his ranting seems to be such a joke. Several others commented on the redundancy of the film—watching all those military and paramilitary groups marching through Nuremberg. Of course, that’s the point: seeing the sheer numbers makes it appear that everyone adored Hitler.

Of course watching the film today, we know where all this was going, know that those beautiful apple-cheeked children would ultimately be sent to the front, know of the suffering and deprivation that Germany suffered—not to mention the suffering that it caused for everyone else! And, oh, yes, why is so hard for people to recognize demagoguery when they see it—today even?

We watched a brief excerpt from The Great Dictator to cleanse our palates. By 1940 at least some people knew exactly what Hitler was up to.

A Disturbing Little Brush with Reality

I’ve been known to say casually that I think that a second Holocaust is unlikely in the twenty-first century because there’s less racism in the world today. And that largely hopeful attitude comes from the fact that I’m surrounded by people—students and other faculty members—who tolerate and even appreciate diversity. But maybe that’s why academia is called “the Ivory Tower.”

Teaching a course on the Holocaust does sometimes cause me to confront reality. Last semester, I went searching on the web to see whether a piece of movie music was the “Horst Wessel Song.” It was, and I found the answer to my question on a web site where one could buy Hitler and Himmler bobble head toys.

Last semester, also, one of my students did his research project on Holocaust denial websites and the difficulty we have in the US of controlling hate speech on the web. It’s a difficult problem in a nation that prides itself on protecting free speech, and there’s no really good answer to the problem.

Today I was looking at youtube, a site that I probably don’t know well enough, to see if I could find examples of concentration camp liberation films to demonstrate that the different Allied powers—the UK, the US, and the USSR—made different choices when they documented conditions in the camps. I’m not yet skillful enough in cinematography to be able to distinguish different national styles, but it doesn’t take much skill to recognize anti-Semitism when it rears its head. In fact, there’s a lot more than I would have expected.

Today's experience made me reconsider whether it could happen again.

The Students Have Spoken

The students voted at the beginning of class yesterday to examine The Boy in Striped Pajamas and Europa Europa (though we had a runoff between Europa Europa and The Pianist).

Quite sensibly, they also suggested that we hold film screenings on Tuesday rather than Thursday. With no classes on Fridays, they observed that they might be setting off on adventures after class on Thursday.

And the Bremen Museum in Atlanta is out. Everyone has too much to do to get ready to travel. That's too bad, as I would have liked to see the Dr. Seuss exhibit (and may decide to see it on my own), and I would have liked for them to see the Holocaust exhibits.

And speaking of class trips, Shannon, Angela, and I met yesterday to discuss possible field trips. It looks as though Udine and Venice are definite (with Udine on June 2 and Venice on June 4). We're still thinking about Padua (the museum of film history) and Trieste (a concentration camp and various James Joyce locations).

One Class Down

The students as I might have anticipated were very thoughtful when they discussed what each assignment should count. As one might expect, they didn’t want the exam to count as much as I would have counted it. However, they had smart reasons for wanting to blog more. Many of them are well traveled—definitely better traveled than I was at their age, so they know that travel will provide them with new and interesting experiences.

I was a little surprised to find less enthusiasm for wikis (I wanted them to create a film glossary that we could all use when we discuss the films as well as when they work on their own documentaries), as I thought that writing wikis would be relatively easy. It may be that the class is roughly divided between students who have a definite interest in film production (they would already know this stuff) and students with relatively little experience in film (like me until relatively recently, they wouldn’t really think of exactly what cinematography adds to the film experience). On the other hand, I’ve assigned wikis in two classes and haven’t yet generated much enthusiasm for the genre, so it may be something I’m doing wrong. Hmmm. Perhaps, wikis just don’t generate much passion.

I case you’re interested, here’s how the assignments break down: short analytical paper (15%), two wiki assignments (20%), four blog entries (40%), final exam (15%), and participation (10%).

We also attended one of Shannon's orientations. Since she's gone on every Italian Film Program before this one, she's quite knowledgeable about both the fun things and the pitfalls we might encounter.

Am curious to see which films the students choose. I deliberately wanted them to discuss the possibilities among themselves. Plus they couldn’t go wrong with any of the choices. Tomorrow, we’ll all know.

Jay looked over my shoulder and noted dispassionately that the blog looks too text heavy. What exactly does he expect from someone who was trained as an English teacher? I do promise some photos later on. So just for fun (and to placate my husband), I've included an image from the cover from the only Bram Stoker to be written (though only partially) about Italy. Gosh, if I were half smart about this stuff I could figure out how to get the image at the BOTTOM of the page, which didn't seem to be an option.

Class Begins Tomorrow

You’d think that someone who has been teaching as long as I have wouldn’t be nervous, but I always am. It’s a new group of students and a class I’ve never taught before in a location I visited once three years ago. So it’s a good thing most of the students won’t know about my nerves until class tomorrow is over—though some of them will probably bring their laptops and may know before then.

Am also nervous because I’m trying something new with this class. Since there are only 10 students in this class, I’m going to ask them to help me design the class. Oh, not completely. Like most teachers, I’m too much of a control freak for that. They will pick several of the films we watch.

For the section on representations of life in the concentration camps, they can choose one of these films: Life is Beautiful, The Counterfeiters, or The Boy in Striped Pajamas.

For the section on resistance, they can choose one of these films: Sophie Scholl, Good Evening, Mr. Wallenberg, Black Book, Europa Europa, or The Pianist. It may not be obvious, but I regard hiding as a kind of resistance.

In each case I’m asking the students to provide a rationale for the film that they choose and to argue for their choice. I also plan to show brief clips of each film and provide them with a summary of each film. Although they really can’t go wrong with any of these films, it will be interesting to see why they pick a particular film. Listening to them discuss their reasons will also give us all a chance to get to know one another better.

The students can also determine how much each of the following assignments should count in terms of their final grades: wiki assignment (film terms); blog (personal reflections); exam; analytical paper; participation. Even though I want students to come to terms with difficult content and the way that material has been represented in film AND to spend time doing different kinds of writing (analysis, definition, reflection), I want them to come up with a rationale for this particular class and to make this class their own. They've obviously chosen to study abroad for a reason (because they are interested in Italy or they’re interested in film or for some other reason), and I’d like for them to help construct a class that is relevant and memorable for them.

Desperately Seeking (Modest and Not Life Threatening) Adventures

Whenever I’ve accompanied students on various study abroad programs, I’ve encouraged them to keep a journal and have dutifully kept one myself. This year (2010) I’m taking a group of Georgia Tech students to Gorizia, Italy (on the Slovenian border in case you want to look at a map).

And since I’m requiring the students to blog, I decided to blog along with them.

Usually no one would want to read about my life. It’s a good life and satisfies me, but it lacks the high drama that makes for interesting reading. Actually I prefer it that way! But I get out of my routine when I travel, visit interesting places, meet new people, and do things that generally get me out of my comfort zone. And, yes, if I can’t figure out anything else to write about, I can always write about the food.

However, the blog will be about more than my life and food, for the subject for the course should be interesting too. The Georgia Tech program focuses on film, and the students take one class in film production (in which they work with students from the University of Udine to make a film) and one class in film history. After visiting the program in 2007 (on my way home from a Dracula conference in Romania), I decided that I really wanted to spend more time in Italy. The problem was that I’m basically a Victorian scholar. Italy and film are way outside my comfort zone.

Three years later I’m teaching a course on the Holocaust in Italian film, and identifying this subject was a journey in itself. A truly superstitious person might say that it was meant to be.

Growing up in a small town in Southwestern Ohio, I wasn’t aware of the Holocaust and certainly didn’t know any Holocaust survivors. Indeed, as an early Babyboomer, I had read The Diary of Anne Frank in junior high school and was only vaguely aware of the capture and trial of Eichmann. Indeed I was part of a generation that didn’t study the Holocaust in school and generally ran out of time in most history classes to touch on World War II.

Several things happened, though, to remind me of the Holocaust. When I graduated from Miami University, the commencement speaker was John Dolibois, who had worked at Miami and was then ambassador to Luxembourg. His message to the graduates was less the standard commencement fare about going out to conquer the world and more about facing unpleasant truths. You see, he served in Military Intelligence after graduating from Miami and had helped interrogate Nazi war criminals prior to the Nuremberg trials.

While in graduate school at the University of Buffalo, I had a summer research assistantship and was asked to compile a bibliography of works on the Holocaust, a field that was still relatively new. As someone who loves going to movies, I was also kept aware of the Holocaust by the sheer number of excellent films that were released in the 70s, 80s, and 90s. Like so many other Americans, I watched the television miniseries Holocaust, which dramatized the events.

Finally, several years ago, I heard Deborah Lipstadt give a talk at my church. Lipstadt, who is Professor of Modern Jewish History and Holocaust Studies at Emory University, is the author of a number of books, including History on Trial: My Day in Court with David Irving (2005) and Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory (1993). Indeed Profssor Lipstadt has made a career of debunking Holocaust deniers

Knowing that my students had probably studied the Holocaust in school, I nonetheless decided that the topic was important enough to warrant our study. I had seen so many thought-provoking movies that took the Holocaust as a topic, and I wanted to see if the class could make some sense of that terrible time.

Although I originally thought of looking at the Holocaust in Italian film, I eventually decided that I wanted to look at the way the Holocaust has been treated in both documentaries and fiction films. After screening literally hundreds of film, I also decided that students should see Triumph of the Will (not technically a Holocaust film but a film that demonstrates ordinary Germans being sucked under Hitler’s sway), Night and Fog (a French film), and Au revoir les enfants. More on these films later.

The class begins on May 17 and ends on June 24. You’re welcome to join my students and me as we travel to Italy and explore a difficult and painful topic. It will, I hope, be both a geographical and intellectual odyssey.