Students' Giggling At `Schindler's List' Prompts Outrage -- Teachers Reply It Was Nervous Laughter Resulting From Ignorance Of Holocaust

SAN JOSE, Calif. - When Steven Spielberg released "Schindler's List," he hoped the film about the Holocaust would provoke a range of responses, from horror to despair to anger. Laughter was not one of them.

But because of their ignorance of the subject, a group of high school students broke into giggles while watching the film during a field trip to an Oakland theater this week.

In what appears to be a clash of cultures and generations, theater managers ousted the Castlemont High School students after other moviegoers complained they were laughing loudly and contemptuously after one of the movie's most affecting scenes.

The problem escalated about an hour into the movie, when Spielberg depicts the beginnings of a concentration camp, said Roger Brown, manager of the Grand Lake movie theater. When an intelligent, gentle Jewish woman suggests to a Nazi guard that the foundation of a building is unsafe, she is shot in the head without remorse. That scene led to an outbreak of laughter from about 20 students, Brown and theater owner Allen Michaan said.

"They were laughing at people being murdered by Nazis, laughing out loud," Michaan said. "People were shaking with anger. The issue was they weren't permitting other patrons to enjoy the movie."

School administrators and teachers, however, accuse the theater and the media of blowing the incident out of proportion. They claimed the laughter was not disruptive and sprang from a nervous,

immature reaction to the depiction of a brutal execution.

School administrators said the group was misunderstood by the other, older moviegoers. And rather than endorsing Nazi tactics or sentiments, the students were expressing their shock at the dramatic execution, administrators said.

Fewer than 10 students laughed, school officials said, partly because they found the way the woman collapsed after being shot somewhat ludicrous.

"They were immediately reprimanded for that display from one of the staff members," said Rick Finkelstein, a teacher who chaperoned the trip. "But there wasn't that malice in their laughter."

"We told (students) that they were going to see a movie of a serious nature and they were to act appropriately," said Tanya Dennis, Castlemont's dean of students. But, she added, they couldn't help but be shocked by the scene.

Although the two sides tell widely contrasting tales of what happened during the noon showing, they agree on one thing: The students, ranging from sophomores to seniors and primarily black and Hispanic, understand little about the Holocaust and bias against Jews.

About 70 students agreed to see the film on the Martin Luther King Jr. school holiday. "We asked the kids today if they knew what anti-Semitism was, and the majority said no," said Finkelstein.

Teachers hoped they would learn from watching the movie about how other groups have been deprived of civil rights and subjected to massive brutality.

When the laughter peaked, about 30 patrons, some of whom had lost relatives in the Holocaust, complained to management. Michaan had the projector shut off and told Castlemont students to go to the lobby, meet their teachers there and leave. About half the 450 other people attending the show applauded the action, Brown and Michaan said.

The theater's management said it has received only compliments on how it handled the situation.

"We witnessed the rowdy, offensive and anti-Semitic behavior, and we are writing to thank you for removing those loud troublemakers before the rest of the audience had to take matters in its own hands," said one letter Michaan said he received.

School officials are seeking ways to turn the embarrassing episode into a lesson by having the students meet actual concentration-camp survivors and focus on learning about the Holocaust. The Anti-Defamation League and the East Bay Jewish Community Relations Council have scheduled a meeting Monday with the school's principal to discuss a new curriculum around the movie and Holocaust education in general.

Because of the incident, from now on the theater will permit school groups to attend only special morning showings of films, Michaan said.

Ironically, said Dennis, Castlemont's dean, the controversy has heightened student interest in the film.

"We're going to make sure the kids see it again," she added. "Hopefully at the Grand Lake."