A look at what happens to ordinary people in extraordinary times – specifically, the changes in customs and social behaviors in a mid-sized German town during the Nazi era –- will be provided in a free lecture Friday, May 6, at Santa Monica College.
Dr. Andrew Stuart Bergerson, a History professor at the University of Missouri at Kansas City, will speak on “The Ethics of Non-Conformity: Ordinary People in Extraordinary Times” at 6:30 p.m. in SMC’s Art Lecture Hall 214, 1900 Pico Boulevard. Seating is on a first-arrival basis. For information, call (310) 434-4003.
Bergerson is the author of Ordinary Germans in Extraordinary Times: The Nazi Revolution in Hildesheim, an account of the ways in which townspeople went about their lives in a mid-sized provincial town, reacting to and shaping events during the Nazi era. He argues that ordinary Germans did, in fact, make Germany and Europe more Fascist, more racist and more modern during the 1930s, but they disguised their involvement behind a veil of normalcy.
The talk is the 2005 Rocky Young lecture, named after a former SMC administrator and professor currently a senior administrator at the Los Angeles Community College District.It is sponsored by the SMC Hillel Club and SMC Associates, a private organization that funds speakers and special programs on campus.