Course Description
This series highlights four films that depict acts of defiance, highlighting the struggles and sacrifices of those who fought back against their occupiers in WWII.
Lectures
- "Sophie Scholl: The Final Days" - Germany, 2005: The Final Days is the true story of Germany's most famous anti-Nazi heroine brought to life. Sophie Scholl is the fearless activist of the underground student resistance group, The White Rose. Through a searing test of will, she delivers a passionate call to freedom and personal responsibility that is both haunting and timeless.
- "Rosenstrasse" - Germany, 2002: Berlin,1943 - Swept up from their forced labor jobs in what was meant to be the Final Roundup in the national capital, 1700 to 2000 Jews, mostly men married to non-Jewish women, were herded into Rosenstrasse 2-4, a welfare office for the Jewish community. In the only successful protest against the Nazi regime in Berlin, the wives actively defied the government.
- "Diplomacy" - France, 2014: August, 1944 - As the Allied Forces move toward Paris, Adolph Hitler commands that the entire city be destroyed. On the eve of destruction, a Swedish diplomat enters into a battle of wits, attempting to convince the commanding general not to go through with the order.
- "Army of Shadows" - France, 1969: This movie reveals rigorously and austerely what life was like in the French Resistance: the solitude and fear of its members; their relationships with one another; the constant threat of arrest by the Gestapo; the Resistance command structure and the way this “Shadow Army’s” orders were carried out.