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CORVALLIS - Oregon State University has scheduled a number of community events in observance of Holocaust Memorial Week.

Events begin with a candlelight vigil at 7:30 p.m. on Sunday, April 15, in OSU's Memorial Union Quad, Kopperman said. Speakers will include Corvallis Mayor Helen Berg; Larry Roper, OSU vice provost for student affairs; and Cantor Lyle Rockler of Corvallis' Beit Am, Mid-Willamette Valley Jewish Community Center.

The Holocaust commemorates the persecution of minority groups about six decades ago. German officials estimate that about 18 million people - Jews, homosexuals, Gypsies, the disabled, Jehovah's Witnesses, leftists, artists - were locked in 520 Nazi camps before and during World War II. Eleven million, about half of them Jews, died.

"In past years, the Holocaust Memorial program has been confined to a single week. In 2001, however, it will also include two events the following week," said Paul Kopperman, OSU professor of history and memorial week coordinator.

Observances are in keeping with the university's stated goal of combating prejudice, he said, with some of the most important work taking place in area public schools. All OSU events are free and open to the public.

On Monday, April 16, at 7:30 p.m. in OSU's LaSells Stewart Center, Michael Allen will talk about "Modernity, the Holocaust, and Machines without History." Allen is an assistant professor of history at Georgia Tech. In his talk, which anticipates findings and observations to be included in a forthcoming book, he will address the issue of how the Nazis' concept of "modernity" helped to precipitate the Holocaust.

Other campus events include:

• Tuesday, April 17

  7:30 p.m.: "International Law, Crimes Against Humanity and the Lessons of Nuremberg," a lecture by retired Col. Thomas Brand, who served in the Judge Advocate General Corps and is the son of James T. Brand, a justice of the Oregon Supreme Court and the judge who oversaw the trials at Nuremberg that focused on crimes against humanity. LaSells Stewart Center.

• Wednesday, April 18

  7:30 p.m.: "Eugenic Sterilization in Oregon, 1909-1983," a lecture by Mark Largent, OSU assistant professor of history. In 1917, the Oregon Assembly enacted a law enabling forced sterilization of "persons with inferior hereditary potentialities." LaSells Stewart Center.

• Thursday, April 19

  7:30 p.m.: "A Survivor's Story," a lecture by Al Wiener, who personally witnessed the Holocaust. Born in Poland, Wiener endured five Nazi concentration camps. LaSells Stewart Center.

• Tuesday, April 24

  3:30 p.m. "Pretty Village, Pretty Flame," a 1997 film that tells the story of a Bosnian Muslim and a Serb who were boyhood friends but found themselves in combat in the 1990s civil war. Kidder Hall, Room 350.

  7:30 p.m.: "Ethnic Cleansing in the Former Yugoslavia: The Historical Background," a lecture by John Braun, an OSU history instructor. Braun will explore why ethnic cleansing returned to Yugoslavia in the 1990s, analyzing the history of the region, the Ottoman background, the Balkan and World Wars, the failure to create a stable multi-ethnic state and the rise of nationalism during the 1980s. LaSells Stewart Center.