Every year on February 22, the comrades of Unit 1012, will honor Sophie Scholl and the White Rose, Sophie and her brother, Hans Scholl and Christoph Probst were all executed by the guillotine on February 22, 1943.
We will remember how Sophie and the
White Rose lived on this earth and not how she died. We will make her one of
the 26 Christian Martyrs of Unit 1012. Sophie was a perfect
example of a Christian Martyr who had the courage to speak out against the evil
Nazis during World War II. We will learn from her quotes to speak out for
victims’ rights too.
We will post
information about her from Wikipedia and other links.
Born
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9 May
1921
Forchtenberg |
Died
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22
February 1943 (aged 21)
Munich |
Nationality
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German
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Ethnicity
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German
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Citizenship
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Nazi
Germany
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Occupation
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Student,
resistance member
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Religion
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Lutheranism
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Sophia Magdalena Scholl (9 May 1921 – 22
February 1943) was a German student and revolutionary, active within the White
Rose non-violent resistance group in Nazi Germany. She was convicted of high
treason after having been found distributing anti-war leaflets at the
University of Munich with her brother Hans. As a result, they were both
executed by guillotine.
Since the 1970s, Scholl has been
celebrated as one of the great German heroes who actively opposed the Third
Reich during the Second World War.
Early life
Scholl's
father, Robert, was the Bürgermeister (or mayor) of Forchtenberg am Kocher in
northern Baden-Württemberg when she was born. She was the fourth of six
children:
- Inge Aicher-Scholl (1917–1998)
- Hans Scholl (1918–1943)
- Elisabeth Scholl Hartnagel (born 1920), married Sophie's long-term boyfriend, Fritz Hartnagel
- Sophie Scholl (1921–1943)
- Werner Scholl (1922–1944) missing in action and presumed dead in June 1944
- Thilde Scholl (1925–1926)
Scholl
was brought up a Lutheran. She entered junior or grade school at the age of
seven, learned easily, and had a carefree childhood. In 1930, the family moved
to Ludwigsburg and then two years later to Ulm where her father had a business
consulting office.
In 1932,
Scholl started attending a secondary school for girls. At the age of twelve,
she chose to join the Bund Deutscher Mädel (League of German Girls), as
did most of her classmates, but her initial enthusiasm gradually gave way to
criticism. She was aware of the dissenting political views of her father, of
friends, and also of some teachers. Political attitude had become an essential
criterion in her choice of friends. The arrest of her brothers and friends in
1937 for participating in the German Youth Movement left a strong impression on
her.
She had a
talent for drawing and painting and for the first time came into contact with a
few so-called "degenerate" artists. An avid reader, she developed a
growing interest in philosophy and theology. Her firm Christian belief in God
and in every human being's essential dignity formed her basis for resisting
Nazi ideology.
In spring
1940, she graduated from secondary school, where the subject of her essay was,
"The Hand that Moved the Cradle, Moved the World". Being fond of
children, she became a kindergarten teacher at the Fröbel Institute in
Ulm-Söflingen. She also had chosen this kindergarten job hoping that it would
be recognized as an alternative service to Reichsarbeitsdienst (National
Labor Service), a prerequisite to be admitted to the university. This was not
the case, though, and in spring 1941 she began a six-month stint in the
auxiliary war service as a nursery teacher in Blumberg. The military-like
regimen of the Labor Service caused her to think very hard about the political
situation as well as to begin practicing passive resistance.
After her
six months in the National Labor Service, in May 1942, she enrolled at the
University of Munich as a student of biology and philosophy. Her brother Hans,
who was studying medicine there, introduced her to his friends. Although this
group of friends eventually was known for their political views, they initially
were drawn together by a shared love of art, music, literature, philosophy, and
theology. Hiking in the mountains, skiing, and swimming were also of importance
to them. They often attended concerts, plays, and lectures together.
In Munich,
Scholl met a number of artists, writers, and philosophers, particularly Carl
Muth and Theodor Haecker, who were important contacts for her. The question
they pondered the most was how the individual must act under a dictatorship.
During the summer vacation in 1942, Scholl had to do war service in a
metallurgical plant in Ulm. At the same time, her father was serving time in
prison for having made a critical remark to an employee about Hitler.
Stamp which represents Sophie Scholl
(Personal stamp-collection of Gretaz).
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The Town Hall in Forchtenberg, birthplace of
Sophie Scholl The Town Hall in Forchtenberg, birthplace of Sophie Scholl.
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Origins of the White Rose
Based upon letters between her and her
boyfriend, Fritz Hartnagel (reported and analyzed by Gunter Biemer and Jakob
Knab in the journal, Newman Studien) she had given two volumes of
Cardinal John Henry Newman's sermons to Hartnagel when he was deployed to the
eastern front in May 1942. This discovery by Jakob Knab shows the importance of
religion in Scholl's life and was highlighted in an article in the Catholic
Herald in the UK. The White Rose was founded after Scholl and others read a
stern anti-Nazi sermon by Clemens August Graf von Galen (the
"Lion of Münster"), the Roman Catholic Bishop of Münster. Although
she was Lutheran, Scholl was motivated by it.
She and they had been horrified by
Hartnagel's reports of the behavior of the Germans on the Eastern Front where
Hartnagel witnessed Soviet soldiers being shot in a pit and learned of the mass
killings of Jews. Her correspondence with Hartnagel deeply discussed the
"theology of conscience" developed in Newman's writings. This is seen
as her primary defense in her transcribed interrogations leading to her
"trial" and execution. Those transcripts became the basis for a 2005
film treatment of her final days, Sophie Scholl – The Final Days.
Activities of the White Rose
The core members initially included
Hans Scholl (Sophie's brother), Willi Graf, and Christoph Probst. In early
summer 1942, this group of young men co-authored six anti-Nazi political
resistance leaflets. Contrary to popular belief, Sophie Scholl was not a
co-author of the articles. Initially her brother had been keen to keep her
unaware of their activities, but once she discovered them, she joined him and
proved valuable to the group because as a woman, her chances of being randomly
stopped by the SS were much smaller. Calling themselves The White Rose, they
instructed Germans to passively resist the Nazis. She and the rest of the White
Rose were arrested for distributing the sixth leaflet at the University of
Munich on 18 February 1943.
In the People's Court before Judge
Roland Freisler on 22 February 1943, Scholl was recorded as saying these words:
Somebody, after all, had to make a start. What we wrote and said is also believed by many others. They just don't dare express themselves as we did.
On 22 February 1943, Scholl, her
brother Hans, and their friend Christoph
Probst were found guilty of treason and condemned to death. They were all
beheaded by a guillotine by executioner Johann
Reichhart in Munich's Stadelheim Prison only a few hours later, at 17:00
hrs. The execution was supervised by Walter Roemer, the enforcement chief of
the Munich district court. Prison officials, in later describing the scene,
emphasized the courage with which she walked to her execution. Her last words
were:
How can we expect righteousness to prevail when there is hardly anyone willing to give himself up individually to a righteous cause. Such a fine, sunny day, and I have to go, but what does my death matter, if through us, thousands of people are awakened and stirred to action?
Fritz Hartnagel was evacuated from
Stalingrad in January 1943, but did not return to Germany before Sophie was
executed. He later married Sophie's sister Elisabeth.
Grave of Hans Scholl,
Sophie Scholl, and Christoph Probst, in the Perlacher Friedhof 48.097344°N 11.59949°E,
next to the Stadelheim prison in Munich Grave of Hans Scholl, Sophie Scholl,
and Christoph Probst, in the Perlacher Friedhof 48.097344°N 11.59949°E,
next to the Stadelheim prison in Munich
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PHOTO SOURCE: http://www.pinterest.com/pin/168251736052102961/
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PHOTO SOURCE: http://www.pinterest.com/pin/140737557079188738/
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Legacy
Following her death, a copy of the
sixth leaflet was smuggled out of Germany through Scandinavia to the UK by
German jurist Helmuth James Graf von Moltke, where it was used by the Allied
Forces. In mid-1943, they dropped over Germany millions of propaganda copies of
the tract, now retitled, The Manifesto of the Students of Munich.
In a historical context, the White
Rose's legacy has significance for many commentators, both as a demonstration
of exemplary spiritual courage, and as a well-documented case of social dissent
in a time of violent repression, censorship, and conformist pressure.
Playwright Lillian Garrett-Groag
stated in Newsday on 22 February 1993, that "It is possibly the
most spectacular moment of resistance that I can think of in the twentieth
century... The fact that five little kids, in the mouth of the wolf, where it
really counted, had the tremendous courage to do what they did, is spectacular
to me. I know that the world is better for them having been there, but I do not
know why."
In the same issue of Newsday, Holocaust
historian Jud Newborn noted that "You cannot really measure the effect of
this kind of resistance in whether or not X number of bridges were blown up or
a regime fell... The White Rose really has a more symbolic value, but that's a
very important value."
Bust of Sophie Scholl in Walhalla
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Stamp of Sophie Scholl and Hans Scholl
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Honors
On 22 February 2003, a bust of Scholl
was placed by the government of Bavaria in the Walhalla temple in her honor.
The Geschwister-Scholl-Institut for
Political Science at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (LMU) is named
in honour of Sophie Scholl and her brother Hans. The institute is home to the
university's political science and communication departments, and is housed in
the former Radio Free Europe building close to the city's Englischer Garten.
There is also an ongoing effort by the LMU Students' Committee (AStA) to rename
the university to Geschwister Scholl University of Munich (Scholl Siblings
University).
Many local schools as well as
countless streets and squares in Germany have been named after Scholl and her
brother.
In 2003, Germans were invited by
television broadcaster ZDF to participate in Unsere Besten (Our Best), a
nation-wide competition to choose the top ten most important Germans of all
time. Voters under the age of forty helped Scholl and her brother Hans to
finish in fourth place, above Bach, Goethe, Gutenberg, Bismarck, Willy Brandt,
and Albert Einstein. If the votes of young viewers alone had been counted,
Sophie and Hans Scholl would have been ranked first. Several years earlier,
readers of Brigitte, a German magazine for women, voted Scholl "the
greatest woman of the twentieth century", winning over such figures as Madeleine
Albright.
Monument to Hans and Sophie Scholl and the "White Rose"
(German: Die Weiße Rose) resistance movement against
the Nazi regime, in front of Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, Bavaria,
Germany. Monument to Hans and Sophie Scholl and the "White Rose"
(German: Die Weiße Rose) resistance movement against
the Nazi regime, in front of Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, Bavaria,
Germany.
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Film, book, and theatrical portrayals
In February 2005, a movie about
Scholl's last days, Sophie Scholl – Die letzten Tage (Sophie Scholl: The Final Days),
featuring actress Julia Jentsch in the title role, was released. Drawing on
interviews with survivors and transcripts that had remained hidden in East
German archives until 1990, it was nominated for an Academy Award for Best
Foreign Language Film in January 2006. For her portrayal of Scholl, Jentsch won
the best actress at the European Film Awards, best actress at the German Film
Awards (Lolas), along with the Silver Bear for best actress at the Berlin Film
Festival.
Jud Newborn and Annette Dumbach's 1986
book about the White Rose, Shattering the German Night (Little, Brown) was
reissued in an expanded, updated, and illustrated edition in 2006, Sophie
Scholl and the White Rose, to accompany the new film's release and provide an
account of the history behind the White Rose.
In February 2009, The History Press
released Sophie Scholl: The Real Story of the Woman who Defied Hitler by Frank
McDonough.
In February 2010, Carl Hanser Verlag
released Sophie Scholl: A Biography (in German), by Barbara Beuys.
There were three earlier film accounts
of the White Rose resistance. The first film was financed by the Bavarian state
government and released in the 1970s, entitled Das Versprechen (The Promise).
In 1982, Percy Adlon's Fünf letzte Tage (Five Last Days) presented Lena Stolze
as Scholl in her last days from the point of view of her cellmate Else Gebel.
In the same year, Stolze repeated the role in Michael Verhoeven's Die Weiße
Rose (The White Rose). In an interview, Stolze said that playing the role was
"an honour".
American playwright Lillian
Garrett-Groag's play The White Rose features Scholl as a major character.
Deutsch: Briefmarken-Blockausgabe der Deutschen Bundespost mit dem Motiv
"20. Jahrestag des Attentats auf Adolf Hitler": Sophie Scholl, Ludwig Beck,
Dietrich Bonhoeffer,
Alfred Delp, Carl Friedrich
Goerdeler, Wilhelm Leuschner,
Helmuth James
Graf von Moltke, Claus
Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg (20 July 1964)
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INTERNET
SOURCE: http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/rose.html
Holocaust
Resistance:
The White Rose - A Lesson in Dissent
by Jacob G. Hornberger
The date was February 22, 1943.
Hans Scholl and his sister Sophie, along with their best friend, Christoph
Probst, were scheduled to be executed by Nazi
officials that afternoon. The prison guards were so impressed with the calm and
bravery of the prisoners in the face of impending death that they violated
regulations by permitting them to meet together one last time. Hans, a medical
student at the University of Munich, was 24. Sophie, a student, was 21.
Christoph, a medical student, was 22.
This is
the story of The White Rose. It is a lesson in dissent. It is a tale of
courage, of principle, of honor. It is detailed in three books, The White
Rose (1970) by Inge Scholl, A Noble Treason (1979) by Richard
Hanser, and An Honourable Defeat (1994) by Anton Gill.
Hans and
Sophie Scholl were German teenagers in the 1930s. Like other young Germans,
they enthusiastically joined the Hitler
Youth. They believed that Adolf
Hitler was leading Germany
and the German people back to greatness.
Their
parents were not so enthusiastic. Their father, Robert Scholl, told his
children that Hitler and the Nazis were leading Germany down a road of
destruction. Later, in 1942,
he would serve time in a Nazi prison for telling his secretary: “The war! It is
already lost. This Hitler is God's scourge on mankind, and if the war doesn't
end soon the Russians will be sitting in Berlin.” Gradually, Hans and Sophie
began realizing that their father was right. They concluded that, in the name
of freedom and the greater good of the German nation, Hitler and the Nazis were
enslaving and destroying the German people.
They also
knew that open dissent was impossible in Nazi Germany, especially after the
start of World
War II. Most Germans took the traditional position, that once war breaks
out, it is the duty of the citizen to support the troops by supporting the
government. But Hans and Sophie Scholl believed differently. They believed that
it was the duty of a citizen, even in times of war, to stand up against an evil
regime, especially when it is sending hundreds of thousands of its citizens to
their deaths.
The
Scholl siblings began sharing their feelings with a few of their friends,
Christoph Probst, Alexander Schmorell, Willi Graf, as well as with Kurt Huber,
their psychology and philosophy professor.
One day in 1942, copies of a
leaflet entitled “The White Rose” suddenly appeared at the University of
Munich. The leaflet contained an anonymous essay that said that the Nazi system
had slowly imprisoned the German people and was now destroying them. The Nazi
regime had turned evil. It was time, the essay said, for Germans to rise up and
resist the tyranny of their own government. At the bottom of the essay, the
following request appeared: “Please make as many copies of this leaflet as you
can and distribute them.”
The leaflet caused a tremendous
stir among the student body. It was the first time that internal dissent
against the Nazi regime had surfaced in Germany. The essay had been secretly
written and distributed by Hans Scholl and his friends.
Another leaflet appeared soon
afterward. And then another. And another. Ultimately, there were six leaflets
published and distributed by Hans and Sophie Scholl and their friends, four
under the title “The White Rose” and two under the title “Leaflets of the Resistance.”
Their publication took place periodically between 1942 and 1943, interrupted
for a few months when Hans and his friends were temporarily sent to the Eastern
Front to fight against the Russians.
The members of The White Rose, of
course, had to act cautiously. The Nazi regime maintained an iron grip over
German society. Internal dissent was quickly and efficiently smashed by the Gestapo.
Hans and Sophie Scholl and their friends knew what would happen to them if they
were caught.
People began receiving copies of
the leaflets in the mail. Students at the University of Hamburg began copying
and distributing them. Copies began turning up in different parts of Germany and
Austria. Moreover, as Hanser points out, the members of The White Rose did not
limit themselves to leaflets. Graffiti began appearing in large letters on
streets and buildings all over Munich: “Down with Hitler! . . . Hitler the Mass
Murderer!” and “Freiheit! . . . Freiheit! . . . Freedom! . . . Freedom!”
The Gestapo was driven into a
frenzy. It knew that the authors were having to procure large quantities of
paper, envelopes, and postage. It knew that they were using a duplicating
machine. But despite the Gestapo's best efforts, it was unable to catch the
perpetrators.
One day, February 18, 1943, Hans'
and Sophie's luck ran out. They were caught leaving pamphlets at the University
of Munich and were arrested. A search disclosed evidence of Christoph Probst's
participation, and he too was soon arrested. The three of them were indicted
for treason.
On February 22, four days after
their arrest, their trial began. The presiding judge, Roland
Freisler, chief justice of the People's Court of the Greater German Reich,
had been sent from Berlin.
Hanser writes:
He conducted the trial as if the
future of the Reich were indeed at stake. He roared denunciations of the
accused as if he were not the judge but the prosecutor. He behaved alternately
like an actor ranting through an overwritten role in an implausible melodrama
and a Grand Inquisitor calling down eternal damnation on the heads of the three
irredeemable heretics before him. . . . No witnesses were called, since the
defendants had admitted everything. The proceedings consisted almost entirely
of Roland Freisler's denunciation and abuse, punctuated from time to time by
half-hearted offerings from the court-appointed defense attorneys, one of whom
summed up his case with the observation, “I can only say fiat justitia. Let
justice be done.” By which he meant: Let the accused get what they deserve.
Freisler and the other accusers
could not understand what had happened to these German youths. After all, they
all came from nice German families. They all had attended German schools. They
had been members of the Hitler Youth. How could they have turned out to be
traitors? What had so twisted and warped their minds?
Sophie Scholl shocked everyone in
the courtroom when she remarked to Freisler: “Somebody, after all, had to make
a start. What we wrote and said is also believed by many others. They just
don't dare to express themselves as we did.” Later in the proceedings, she said
to him: “You know the war is lost. Why don't you have the courage to face it?”
In the middle of the trial,
Robert and Magdalene Scholl tried to enter the courtroom. Magdalene said to the
guard: “But I'm the mother of two of the accused.” The guard responded: “You
should have brought them up better.” Robert Scholl forced his way into the
courtroom and told the court that he was there to defend his children. He was
seized and forcibly escorted outside. The entire courtroom heard him shout:
“One day there will be another kind of justice! One day they will go down in
history!”
Robert Freisler pronounced his
judgment on the three defendants: Guilty of treason. Their sentence: Death.
They were escorted back to
Stadelheim prison, where the guards permitted Hans and Sophie to have one last
visit with their parents. Hans met with them first, and then Sophie. Hansen
writes:
His eyes were clear and steady
and he showed no sign of dejection or despair. He thanked his parents again for
the love and warmth they had given him and he asked them to convey his
affection and regard to a number of friends, whom he named. Here, for a moment,
tears threatened, and he turned away to spare his parents the pain of seeing
them. Facing them again, his shoulders were back and he smiled. . . .
Then a woman prison guard brought
in Sophie. . . . Her mother tentatively offered her some candy, which Hans had
declined. “Gladly,” said Sophie, taking it. “After all, I haven't had any
lunch!” She, too, looked somehow smaller, as if drawn together, but her face
was clear and her smile was fresh and unforced, with something in it that her
parents read as triumph. “Sophie, Sophie,” her mother murmured, as if to
herself. “To think you'll never be coming through the door again!” Sophie's
smile was gentle. “Ah, Mother,” she said. “Those few little years. . . .”
Sophie Scholl looked at her parents and was strong in her pride and certainty.
“We took everything upon ourselves,” she said. “What we did will cause waves.”
Her mother spoke again: “Sophie,” she said softly, “Remember Jesus.” “Yes,”
replied Sophie earnestly, almost commandingly, “but you, too.” She left them,
her parents, Robert and Magdalene Scholl, with her face still lit by the smile
they loved so well and would never see again. She was perfectly composed as she
was led away. Robert Mohr [a Gestapo official], who had come out to the prison
on business of his own, saw her in her cell immediately afterwards, and she was
crying. It was the first time Robert Mohr had seen her in tears, and she
apologized. “I have just said good-bye to my parents,” she said. “You
understand . . .” She had not cried before her parents. For them she had
smiled.
No relatives visited Christoph
Probst. His wife, who had just had their third child, was in the hospital.
Neither she nor any members of his family even knew that he was on trial or
that he had been sentenced to death. While his faith in God had always been
deep and unwavering, he had never committed to a certain faith. On the eve of
his death, a Catholic priest admitted him into the church in articulo mortis,
at the point of death. “Now,” he said, “my death will be easy and joyful.”
That afternoon, the prison guards
permitted Hans, Sophie, and Christoph to have one last visit together. Sophie
was then led to the guillotine. One observer described her as she walked to her
death: “Without turning a hair, without flinching.” Christoph Probst was next.
Hans Scholl was last; just before he was beheaded, Hans cried out: “Long live
freedom!”
Unfortunately, they were not the
last to die. The Gestapo's investigation was relentless. Later tried and
executed were Alex Schmorell (age 25), Willi Graf (age 25), and Kurt Huber (age
49). Students at the University of Hamburg were either executed or sent to
concentration camps.
Today, every German knows the
story of The White Rose. A square at the University of Munich is named after
Hans and Sophie Scholl. And there are streets, squares, and schools all over
Germany named for the members of The White Rose. The German movie The White
Rose is now found in video stores in Germany and the United States. Richard
Hansen sums up the story of The White Rose:
In the vogue words of the time,
the Scholls and their friends represented the “other” Germany, the land of
poets and thinkers, in contrast to the Germany that was reverting to barbarism
and trying to take the world with it. What they were and what they did would
have been “other” in any society at any time. What they did transcended the
easy division of good-German/bad-German and lifted them above the nationalism
of time-bound events. Their actions made them enduring symbols of the struggle,
universal and timeless, for the freedom of the human spirit wherever and
whenever it is threatened.
Sources: The Future of Freedom Foundation. Mr. Hornberger is
founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation.
OTHER LINKS:
PHOTO SOURCE: http://verbewarp.blogspot.com.au/2012_02_01_archive.html
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PHOTO SOURCE: http://www.ascensionearth2012.org/2014/01/sophie-scholl-excecuted-by-nazis.html |
Hans Scholl (left), Sophie Scholl and Christoph Probst, leaders of the White Rose resistance organization. Munich 1942 |
PLEASE SEE THIS
VIDEO:
Opposition to the Nazis - Sophie
Scholl
VIDEO SOURCE: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZJXLZdnhCI
Wow, the entire White Rose movement is such an inspirational story of what can happen when one or two people are willing to stand up for what is right. Their courage, strength, and dedication to what is right is truly spectacular. It is amazing to me how much affect one person standing for right can have on the lives of those around them. The story of the Scholl siblings has helped me to always look for ways that I can stand up for what is right. This article reminded me of an article that my friend Haleigh wrote about the effect that standing for what is right has had in her life. While her story is nowhere near as far reaching or courageous as the Scholls I think that it shows what can happen when we stand up for what we know is right. You can find it here http://goo.gl/IcbMBr Thanks again for this great article!
ReplyDeleteYou are welcome. Unit 1012 wants to remember the way people like Sophie Scholl live and not how she died. We remember victims and heroes.
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