Remembering Resistance: Sophie Scholl and the White Rose

This program’s original recording transcript is below. This transcription was created automatically during a live program so may contain inaccurate transcriptions of some words.

Sydney Yaeger (she/her): hi everyone, my name is Sydney Yaeger and i'm the public programs coordinator at the Museum of Jewish heritage, a living memorial to the Holocaust.

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Sydney Yaeger (she/her): Now, in its 24th year the museum is committed to the crucial mission of educating our diverse community about Jewish life in heritage, before, during and after the Holocaust.

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Sydney Yaeger (she/her): As part of that mission our programs are meant to illuminate the stories of survivors broader histories of hate and anti semitism through time and stories of resistance against injustice.

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Sydney Yaeger (she/her): Today we remember so facial Han shul and Christophe props who are all part of the light rose resistance group.

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Sydney Yaeger (she/her): They took a stand against the Nazis and 79 years ago on February 22 they were executed by the Gestapo.

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Sydney Yaeger (she/her): We remember they're brave actions so official said, stand up for what you believe in, even if you are standing alone.

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Sydney Yaeger (she/her): we're honored to be joined by today's moderator moderator excuse me lori weintraub along with our speakers working Huber frank mcdonough and Nathan stoltz this.

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Sydney Yaeger (she/her): whole thing is the son of Professor Kurt Huber a professor of philosophy at the University of Munich, who guided the members of the white rose and was executed on July 13 1943, for his part of the group.

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Sydney Yaeger (she/her): Wolfgang is Professor emeritus at the Catholic University of H Scott angle stock and has spoken widely about his father and the light rose.

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Sydney Yaeger (she/her): frank mcdonough is a historian and author, who has written numerous books about third right.

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Sydney Yaeger (she/her): These include the Gestapo the myth and reality of hit their secret police Hitler and the rise of the Nazi party and so until official the woman who defied Hitler.

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Sydney Yaeger (she/her): his most recent book is the Hitler years a two volume narrative history of the years when Hitler from Germany.

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Sydney Yaeger (she/her): Nathan stoltzfus is the Dorothy and Jonathan Rentals professor of Holocaust studies of Florida State University.

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Sydney Yaeger (she/her): his most recent books include the power of populism and people resistance and protest in the modern world, women define Hitler rescue and resistance under the Nazis and hitler's compromises, coercion and consensus in Nazi Germany.

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Sydney Yaeger (she/her): lori weintraub our moderator is professor of history and founding director of the Wagner college Holocaust Center on Staten island.

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Sydney Yaeger (she/her): she's currently editing eyewitness to history documents of the Holocaust and completing a project on women resistance leaders in the Holocaust.

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Sydney Yaeger (she/her): She is co author of the original play rise up young Holocaust heroes and co curator of the exhibit rescue and resistance among others at the Wagner college Holocaust Center Thank you all so much for joining us and i'm now going to pass things over to lori.

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Lori Weintrob: it's an honor to be here today with two scholars of the German resistance.

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Lori Weintrob: Movement and also with the son of.

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Lori Weintrob: Of Kurt Buber professor of philosophy and musicology and one of Sophie shoals professors.

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Lori Weintrob: This is a unique group the white rose among the few voices against Nazi ISM within Germany, the young white rose Members a student resistance movement, based in Munich had the courage to place conscience before conformity.

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Lori Weintrob: beginning in the summer of 1942 the leaders of this network wrote for leaflets and later to others as well as conducting graffiti campaigns.

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Lori Weintrob: You just heard about how just today on the anniversary February 22 79 years ago, so if you show at the age of 21.

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Lori Weintrob: was executed, along with her brother Hans and Christoph pope's and six months later, in July and October other white rose members Alexander morrell Willie graph and Professor Kurt uber we're also executed.

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Lori Weintrob: And then Members from the Member from the Humber white rose possibly belt, was executed in January of 1945.

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Lori Weintrob: There carefully crafted words and actions continue to inspire hope in activists around the world in 2003 young viewers of the German television station Z def.

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Lori Weintrob: chose the siblings hands and so be show as the most important German individuals of all time above the composer Johann Sebastian Bach the poet gupta and the scientist Albert Einstein.

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Lori Weintrob: My own research over the past few years has been to integrate eyewitness testimony of resistance and rescue and to seek to establish a canon of names of resistors.

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Lori Weintrob: And to ask why can we name the perpetrators, but not the resistors our distinguished panel today will help us to better identify these resistors and I want to start by asking.

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Lori Weintrob: Professor Wolfgang uber just what it means to you to be having this event on February 22 Is this a day that should be better known both inside and outside of Germany.

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Lori Weintrob: Do you have any direct memories of this time and to what extent you take pride in knowing that the leaflet that your father authored was distributed by the thousands.

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Lori Weintrob: By allied.

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Lori Weintrob: Troops during their campaign against the Nazis.

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Wolfgang Huber: Well, these are many questions.

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Wolfgang Huber: The one is, for instance, my personal room remembrance, so I could say I don't remember very well, my father was only four years old, at that time when did it so my.

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Wolfgang Huber: memory is not worth telling there are not very important things I could tell you that maybe the funeral I could remember the funeral is.

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Wolfgang Huber: The cemetery was already cleverest and everything had to be in great Harry so I had to run instead of to walk and everything was about strange to me because my mother told me my father's in the hospital and.

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Wolfgang Huber: All of a sudden, he wasn't in the hospital any longer, so this was.

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Wolfgang Huber: Strange stage but it's, the only thing I really could remember.

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Wolfgang Huber: The other thing is.

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Wolfgang Huber: hands and selfish all have a high degree of prominence, but I think a high degree of prominence it doesn't necessarily imply a high interest in the resistance movement.

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Wolfgang Huber: I think sherman's know very well about Downs and suffering Sean as prominent figures, but I think they are not so much interested in really what they do what they did, and I think the interest in the resistance is not the same as the prominence.

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Wolfgang Huber: There was another question, please What was it.

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Lori Weintrob: What what does this day mean to you, and whether you think.

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Lori Weintrob: It should be a better known day, both inside and outside of Germany.

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Wolfgang Huber: Well it's well known abroad, I think the white rose is pretty known abroad, so I think it's not necessary to improve their but.

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Wolfgang Huber: There are great differences in some countries, I mean a country like kind of China.

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Wolfgang Huber: might well, though in learning a bit about the right words but i'm quite sure where they will repeat it before they learn about it, this is one thing, and the other thing is about my family well the second.

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Wolfgang Huber: The 22nd of February, of course, always was it was a moment to remember, but in our family, the most important time was about the 30th of July, the death of my father, this was a time where we went to the grave and similar things.

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Lori Weintrob: And i'm sure it's very touching to hear you talk about your father and I can't I want to hear more.

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Lori Weintrob: about what he means to you, and what you hope that he will mean to all the listeners today i'm going to turn for a minute just to one of the other Professor Nathan stoltzfus.

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Lori Weintrob: you've been involved in teaching and research about descent in Nazi Germany and have a particular interest in how the white rose saw to shape opinion as the German conscience Can you help us to better understand.

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Lori Weintrob: As Professor you Bo was saying, so we don't just know the name but understand what is behind the resistance, how did they use the written word to inspire resistance.

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Lori Weintrob: Including quoting authors like Greta and Schiller what is it that you think that youth today and and all of us should know about the white rose.

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Nathan Stoltzfus: Thank you, that that again more good questions.

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Nathan Stoltzfus: As we learned, they were a handful of students, I think what's important or one of the important things is that they could have done nothing.

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Nathan Stoltzfus: And that we need to also lift up the goodness that happened out of these dark times and that they represent that.

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Nathan Stoltzfus: Now i'm interested like you said in how they found the courage to speak out and.

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Nathan Stoltzfus: I think the value of their idea, and work is indicated certainly by that pole you mentioned, but I wanted to mention that Hans apparently.

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Nathan Stoltzfus: heard about and read Bishop Catholic bishops fun garland's sermons against euthanasia and the results and was impressed with the importance of possibilities of opinion.

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Nathan Stoltzfus: But with government in control and median police he didn't have a puppet like fun Garland did what could you do, having learned in the summer about mass murder and Eastern front, Poland and USSR Hans show and Alexandra.

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Nathan Stoltzfus: felt compelled to take action and when Sophie Sophie show hands shows sister found out about this, some months later, she she joined.

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Nathan Stoltzfus: And so they had this notion that if they were as they said, we are your conscience someone had to speak out and that would open up the possibilities for people who were silenced.

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Nathan Stoltzfus: Because they weren't a minority or didn't have any one who felt like they did in dissent and social psychologists have some models for this one is pluralistic ignorance, where you don't speak out if no one else.

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Nathan Stoltzfus: seems to be on your side, but they hope to get a movement and awareness, I think what is interesting, there is that of course they were imitating hitler's own idea about.

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Nathan Stoltzfus: Taking control through through opinion through basically the first pillar of mass support and getting back to I know that some of considered their resistance reckless or even pathetic, but I think that the Allies dropped their last pamphlet over Germany southern Germany indicating.

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Nathan Stoltzfus: The importance of opinion and if you've seen that last part of the film downfall with hitler's Secretary yoga she talks about how.

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Nathan Stoltzfus: She had given herself, for all her life, a pass on taking action, but when she came across the memorial of pamphlets on the on the street, she realized that she had the same birth year as Sophie shoal and it had her you know.

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Nathan Stoltzfus: mightily and and she's been she she realized that there were people who had spoken out, even though they were young so their importance continues obviously into presence.

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Lori Weintrob: Okay, well, thank you for getting us started by thinking about their motives and including the growing awareness that the Nazis were.

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Lori Weintrob: You know, killing the mentally and physically disabled, as well as the atrocities on the eastern front.

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Lori Weintrob: and frank, can you tell us more about the strategies of the white rose, why did they take such great risks.

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Lori Weintrob: And you know where do you weigh in on the opinion about.

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Lori Weintrob: You know the rest they check, particularly in distributing the six pamphlet.

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Frank McDonough: I think of the star the white robes was really only hands shawl and Alexander morale they were they were medical students at Munich university.

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Frank McDonough: And they wanted to mount some kind of resistance movement and they decided that the best way to do this would be to.

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Frank McDonough: Post leaflets now it's not a very you know it's a you'd say well we're going to post the leaflets to they decided to post the leaflets to people they founded the local telephone book.

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Frank McDonough: And they picked out in the telephone book it had the name of a person, but also have the occupation so interestingly enough, they chose more middle class occupations to send the leaflets to so in a sense, I mean, I think.

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Frank McDonough: They matter a Communist resistor.

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Frank McDonough: called horner and he said to them the people you're sending these leaflets to.

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Frank McDonough: won't be receptive to them, they are more likely to be the people who are in these positions of authority and more likely to be committed Nazis.

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Frank McDonough: And so, their aims were to if they could disseminate the leaflets and in the leaflets, they said copy the leaf and distributes it, so the idea was you get a leaflet and then you distribute it to the other people that you knew now interestingly enough.

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Frank McDonough: The Gestapo collected up about 90% of the leaflets that were sent, in other words, they were sent to Germans who were patriotic and gave the leaflets and so, in terms of actually.

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Frank McDonough: getting through to the general public, the White rose wasn't successful in that way, the range would Nonviolent Sophie join the group.

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Frank McDonough: When she came to me to university in 1942 and as Nathan just said she didn't know at the beginning, who, who was distributing these leaflets and then she read one leaflets.

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Frank McDonough: And I think hands was acetate racer she rather some of that out to him some of the quotations in it, who were philosophers who he liked it, he said this issue.

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Frank McDonough: because she was convinced that was him and then after a while he said no, and then he said yeah they also brought into their say hello guy called Willie graph he was another medical student, although he didn't participate.

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Frank McDonough: In any of the leaflets, in actual fact His story is quite amazing because he was a committed Catholic and he was very brave.

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Frank McDonough: Interestingly enough, the Gestapo botha he was the leader of the white rose, the reason was.

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Frank McDonough: Because he they found that he was visiting places in the Rhineland that they thought he was the lead that which you wasn't what he did stand by the white rose and they kept him on death row for a long, long time, and so they were medical students it's interesting isn't it that you know.

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Frank McDonough: Willie brown alexander's morale and hands were all medical students, so instead of killing people in the war and they were in the German army as well, they were healing people, which I think is quite interesting Sofia cell i've been anti Nazi.

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Frank McDonough: Probably about 1937 onwards remember hands and Sophie were in the Hitler youth, they were actually Hitler youth leaders hands, if you see a photograph of him, you know he goes look every inch do the area and Superman and he was made, the leader of the local Hitler youth, but then.

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Frank McDonough: He turned on the Nazis, because he was involved in a case that was brought by by a member of the hip the youth or.

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Frank McDonough: Sexual pacer homosexual case and after that Sophie enhance turned on on the Nazi regime or during the war, even at the stars in the world, when he was winning they are still very much against it, then.

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Frank McDonough: Care uber he's a lecturer at university and he was a brilliant lecturer, by all accounts, that the the actual lecture halls.

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Frank McDonough: and his son will tell you the lectures were packed and he was one of those lecturers and who was very busy you know punctuated all of his lectures, with a funny anecdotes.

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Frank McDonough: And Sophie really like uber care to what became very friendly with Sophie and through Sophie.

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Frank McDonough: They sort of brought him in to the white rose group, I think the reason why, because the first four leaflets didn't really reach a wide audience of the pros in pairs.

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Frank McDonough: Because of his academic ability he was internationally, he was an internationally famous academic folk music, so they brought him into the group and then he started to participate in the last two leaflets.

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Lori Weintrob: Can you say there's two things I wanted to bring out one is about a hands and sophie's father and to what extent his anti Nazi has an influence the birth of the white rose.

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Lori Weintrob: And then the second question is, if you could just if you were Professor uber could explain a little bit the nuances between the opinions of ponds and Alex and then Professor older.

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Frank McDonough: I think that Sophie was a committed Christian I think they were all interested in philosophy a humanist philosophy, I think you'd have to say.

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Frank McDonough: I know people said well where they liberals, I think that they were mostly at the top committed Christians.

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Frank McDonough: They were very committed Christians and what they hasten was the hitler's regime was persecuting.

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Frank McDonough: Christians priests clerics and so on and so that drove them towards it, as for the new answers i'd say you know the probably probably hands was more of a kind of liberal constitutionalist democrats.

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Frank McDonough: I think, Alexander morale he was very pro Russian because because his mother was working and so he actually was also.

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Frank McDonough: In faith in favor of the Red Army and the Second World War I say he was he was a little bit most of the left of the group, and he actually wrote, one of the leaflets which.

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Frank McDonough: goes on about sabotage, you know sabotage factory sabotage.

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Frank McDonough: newspapers and in the actual interrogation, this was a big thing to say that they committed high treason fell between handguns and Alexander, there was a bit of a tension.

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Frank McDonough: Between should they be pulling for the peace message, or should they be pulling forward or more sorts of strides anti militarist point of view, care, who back again i'd say he was sort of say.

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Frank McDonough: A kind of old fashioned i'd say conservative stroke liberal API so and and he he he hated the whole idea of totalitarianism and he came to hate it.

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Frank McDonough: And the more that he started to lose the battles of the walk and, interestingly enough, the other he had a vision.

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Frank McDonough: of you know, the Hitler had to be stopped, and I think it's Stalingrad he writes the the the leaflet the six leaflets he writes the city leaflets and there's a bit of a dispute between him.

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Frank McDonough: And hands and Alex over that six leaflet because I think in the original leaf Lee says something about our glorious Verma.

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Frank McDonough: And hands and Alex I know there's nothing glorious about the bear market take that take that phrase out of the leaf flood, and he says no, I want to phrase it now he actually falls out with the group with the group over that issue.

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Frank McDonough: And he doesn't know this is where you could say, and they are a bit reckless because, instead of sort of saying okay shelf the six leaflets.

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Frank McDonough: They deliver it hands and Sophie delivered on the university campus, in other words, he said I don't agree with a leaflet they just dismiss this point of view, and so that.

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Frank McDonough: kind of one of the issues in the white roses and amazingly Okay, who, but what a brave man he never actually brought up this issue.

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Frank McDonough: all the way through his trial, and he died, you know, a committed man like a Thomas More, if you like, a man for all seasons, even though he knew.

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Frank McDonough: That they fell out with this leaflets he stopped by guns and he stopped by what the white rose vote for and that's why.

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Frank McDonough: These incredibly brave man Well he did some people might have tried to escape punishment by say, well, I didn't write that leaflet it's nothing to do with me, but no he didn't he took the rock for happened and why he's an incredibly brave man.

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Lori Weintrob: Thank you, yes, that that really clarifies.

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Lori Weintrob: The legacy of Kurt duper in a touching way Nathan, can you revisit that and you want to add anything to that.

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Lori Weintrob: To what extent do you think cons and Sophie were impacted by their fathers politics and then how how Professor youtubers politics, then further affected them or differences with within the white rose.

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Nathan Stoltzfus: yeah just picking up on what what frank said that they were.

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Nathan Stoltzfus: They were reckless, which is what many have have sort of leveled at them, I prefer to think of them as idealistic, and especially.

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Nathan Stoltzfus: You know.

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Nathan Stoltzfus: This the same, I feel like that's an on even maybe contrast between them and say, for example, the 20th of July conspiracy, which also probably couldn't have brought fascism to an end.

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Nathan Stoltzfus: By killing Hitler, so I like to stick up for them as as idealist rather than then reckless although certainly have those aspects certainly.

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Nathan Stoltzfus: You know, would have been totally on risk realistic for the white rose to try to kill to take power or to overthrow the regime by force, just as it was to try to change that whole propaganda machine.

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Nathan Stoltzfus: That heather had built up and all the belief in him, through changing opinion.

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Nathan Stoltzfus: But they did help that that demise of the German army in the east front that Stalin grod would be a wind in their sales that people would certainly have been tiring and maybe see the light they expected of course on realistically that the world would end sooner than it did.

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Nathan Stoltzfus: But you know, so there was some realism there and in their efforts to place to increase their demands and there may be reckless distribution of pamphlets after the fall of stolen ground.

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Lori Weintrob: Okay, and and Professor you bird you want to add anything about the you know what when you understand, about the nuances between the different authors of the pamphlets.

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Wolfgang Huber: I just wanted to say that what does the white rose mean for us today, I think this is a very poor question.

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Wolfgang Huber: Because we don't tell the story about the White House, because it's such a nice story.

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Wolfgang Huber: I think we tell it because we want to make sure that never again should happen national socialism in that way it came, but we don't forget, I think, or we must not forget.

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Wolfgang Huber: That Hitler came to power quite legally and in every democracy, democracy is not so easy I mean you can't take democracy for granted you'll always have to be.

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Wolfgang Huber: alert that it could happen something with it and, at the moment, I think we see a lot of things, especially in Germany that make us alert and make us think about that.

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Wolfgang Huber: I think, first of all, we have some obligation to remember the right levels because of the courage they settled and.

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Wolfgang Huber: Because of the idea that maybe if a situation is similar in the future, there are also people might have the same courage, but this is how, and I think the moral obligation to remember and to have some sort of Memorial, is very important also we have a party that say.

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Wolfgang Huber: The Holocaust Memorial, in the middle of Berlin is such a no, it is not the shame, it is necessary, it is necessary to remind these things in order to ensure that they won't come again but they could come again in many disguises, so there are many.

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Wolfgang Huber: Government governments that have laws that look quite quite simple, or even helpful so, for instance, if we say.

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Wolfgang Huber: The press must be very balanced So if you speak bad about one party speak also be good about one party, but nothing, all of them are corrupt how to say good things about them it's impossible.

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Wolfgang Huber: And there are laws about the press that are really restricting the press, and I think this is very, very difficult and very, very dangerous.

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Wolfgang Huber: At the moment, in Germany, I see so, for instance manifestations against the covert measures of the government.

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Wolfgang Huber: So a journalist will come and provide some footage on the manifestation and he is insulted he's threatened he's even attacked and I think there is missing a good deal of democratic behavior.

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Wolfgang Huber: Democracy is not simply if you have elections, elections alone even is a free and perfect is no guarantee that the whole.

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Wolfgang Huber: The whole state is democratic, or that the people think democratically, but this is important that this is very necessary that we do so that we remind of people who could think so.

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Lori Weintrob: This This reminds me very much of a quote from one of the last surviving members of the white rose friends Miller.

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Lori Weintrob: He said that haunts and Sophie did not want to be known as heroes, but it is view they represented a struggle for truth and freedom.

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Lori Weintrob: And I think that's a little bit what you're trying to get at and i'm just going to pull up some of the wording from the brochure from the pamphlets so we can see a little bit how that they critiqued them, you know the fascist government and their appeal.

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Lori Weintrob: um.

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Lori Weintrob: And then we can go back to further conversation about their legacy today.

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We.

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Nathan Stoltzfus: heard capital.

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Lori Weintrob: m So if you can I don't know if everybody can see my screen, which already went to quickly, but here we have the members of the white rose that we've been discussing Professor uber alexander's morale Sophie enhance Christoph and Willie graph.

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Lori Weintrob: And each of them who were executed by the regime.

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Lori Weintrob: And this is to give you a little bit of a sense of the language of the white rose.

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Lori Weintrob: And the second leaflet they wrote.

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Lori Weintrob: Since the conquest of Poland 300,000 Jews have been murdered in this country and the most beast show away the German people slumber on adult stupid sleep and encourage the fastest fascist criminal.

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Lori Weintrob: Each one wants to be exonerated of guilt, each one continues on his way with the most placid calm conscience, but he cannot be exonerated he is guilty is would be one of the efforts to.

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Even believe what they said.

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Lori Weintrob: To.

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Lori Weintrob: discourage the apathy and then this is this is this, this is the quote that reminded me of what you were just saying from the Third, the flood.

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Lori Weintrob: Our current state is the dictatorship of evil, we know that already I hear you object and we don't need you to reproach us for it yet again.

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Lori Weintrob: I asked you if you know that, then why don't you act, why do you tolerate these rulers gradually robbing you in public and private have one right after another.

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Lori Weintrob: And so, one day, nothing, absolutely nothing remains, but the machinery of the State under the command of criminals and Junkers so that's a little bit what you were referring to in terms of the the passion, they had.

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Lori Weintrob: In fighting the regime, I wonder if anybody wants to comment on either of those two.

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Lori Weintrob: quotes from the leaflets or anything else, specifically about.

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Lori Weintrob: You know the way they wrote the leaflets the style or the contents is there anything you want to add to that or to comment specifically on those two two quotes.

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Wolfgang Huber: comment on the point whether they wanted to be here with us, I think this is the wrong question, the question is, do we want now to be the heroes and, if so, I think they are.

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Wolfgang Huber: And personally I think they were heroes, but there is a tendency now in the present that we want to say, these were no heroes, they were.

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Wolfgang Huber: quite ordinary people and we published as many bad things about them, as we could just to show that they were normal.

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Wolfgang Huber: But I think this is not quite the true question, the question is, do we want them to be heroes, and I think they are, and I want them to be so also I know there are many people who are against it.

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Wolfgang Huber: So.

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Lori Weintrob: I can just tell you that I also agree that I.

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Lori Weintrob: think that there is a place.

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Lori Weintrob: It when Yad Vashem created Holocaust Remembrance Day in 1951 it was called Holocaust martyrs and heroes Day and it continues to be called that you on my show of a hug uhura and I think that there is a place for.

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Lori Weintrob: heroism in the fight for human rights and to preserve democracy as as you were saying.

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Lori Weintrob: I want to also show a scene from the film um let's see if I can pull that up again.

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Lori Weintrob: it's a it's about four minutes from the film and.

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Lori Weintrob: I think it will give us further a tuition fee obviously coach of the notice.

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Lori Weintrob: So in that scene that shows us how Sophie is is arguing for her position.

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Lori Weintrob: What do you think of this this the film centering the story on So if you show how do you think that happened that.

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Lori Weintrob: You know there went from sort of a focus on the authors of the pamphlets to having more of a focus on Sophie show.

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Nathan Stoltzfus: Well it's such an excellent question i've always wondered and i'm sure frank might know more, but I think a critical moment was when the decision was made to.

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Nathan Stoltzfus: honor the white rose at valhalla near reagan's floor and there was a decision to have Sophie shown represent.

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Nathan Stoltzfus: represent the Germans, I mean the white rose there and then, of course, these films, the one that you showed is also named Sophie I I really wonder what it means, given that hands, of course, the sibling brother launched the movement and whether it indicates.

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Nathan Stoltzfus: Something more emotional than then and maybe reckless I I don't I don't know, I wonder what others think, certainly, I think.

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Nathan Stoltzfus: What is impressive about the clip you showed that is that he she is able to make her own conscience, and to follow that separately from the conscience of of the people all around her because certainly.

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Nathan Stoltzfus: You know conformity was a massive pressure that heather use to build his his movement and to keep people in line with national socialism, but she found her conscience, aside from that from those masses.

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Frank McDonough: I think I think the reason why they foreground itself, he was that number one she was a woman, and you know that you know.

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Frank McDonough: If you haven't got millions of women in history, you get highlighted, so I think that was one of the reasons number two was the Sofia become a kind of icon in Germany, I mean, I think.

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Frank McDonough: There were about 143 schools named after and also, I think, hands was a more controversial figure his life was more controversial than Sophie.

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Frank McDonough: Sophie represented, I think, a kind of legacy for democracy, so she came to kind of represents, I think I think in Germany he represented the white rose much more than.

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Frank McDonough: Alexander morale and hands shawl and even your care uber and Willie graph.

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Frank McDonough: Now that's just the way things are, are they sometimes in history we take somebody out and we make them into.

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Frank McDonough: The hero when an actual fact, we know that there were there were a group of them there were a group of people here who should have all been generated heroes now I actually spoke to the director and he said that.

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Frank McDonough: It would be more difficult to sell the film around the world has it been called the white rose.

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Frank McDonough: With Sophie surely said it was it was easy it was an easier sell to sell out.

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Frank McDonough: As a film so that's again commercial considerations as well, since the films come out, so I mean when I wrote my book, which is a long time ago.

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Frank McDonough: Nobody in Britain you so we show a while, so I was starting from like a blank piece of paper, and then the film came out.

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Frank McDonough: And I went to the launch of the film and it was it was basically an arthouse film it didn't get.

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Frank McDonough: A general release and all the big cinemas, it was mainly an arthouse cinema is that it was seen a people, people who say they are you seeing the Sophie short film, I think that the film itself My problem with the film.

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Frank McDonough: Is that it starts with the with the arrest of hands and Sophie and goes through the last four days, so we don't actually see that.

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Frank McDonough: Sophie comes across and we see it in that clip as well, she comes across as really intense.

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Frank McDonough: And you know she doesn't seem to be you know, a laid back figure she doesn't seem to have a sense of human.

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Frank McDonough: And I think that that's the opposite of what you find when you go back and look at our life when you look at our life and see all the photographs.

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Frank McDonough: she's not thing, like the person, you see, in that film, you know she's she's funny she's whiskey they're all funny they're all busy.

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Frank McDonough: they're all sorts of outgoing people and we don't see that in the film, we see a kind of she's almost like the kind of a you know, a kind of a committed.

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Frank McDonough: source of a committed sort of politician or something like that, and she was nothing like that she was nothing like that, so the film doesn't really bring out their personality and I think that.

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Frank McDonough: that's where the fill people say it's a great film is grateful, well, I think a great film is where you build up the characters of people, you know they are you know krista props walks down a corridor we don't even know who he is.

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Frank McDonough: Because we've not seen his life with not seeing his relationship with Sophie we don't I don't know but I don't think we even see alexander's tomorrow.

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Frank McDonough: We see him before in the first preamble, we see them falling out over the leaflet and that's about it, so I think the film doesn't doesn't represent a know the sort of.

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Frank McDonough: The all round intellectual interesting charming group that they were people were attracted to them for that reason, because you know, like people would see them be attracted to them, but if you see the film is.

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Frank McDonough: she's a bit intense and that is not what he was like at school, I think, so I think the film because it just if you saw some go to the last four days of someone's life.

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Frank McDonough: And in that last four days they've been arrested and put on trial for high treason I don't think you see the whole person.

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Frank McDonough: And I think we need to look back at the leaflets as well bring out what happened, the legals and look back at so please life and, as you said earlier, their father, you know, a father was an important figure.

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Frank McDonough: You know, he was a liberally be the local man, the mother was a nurse so she had that kind of background, if you like, your mother gave of the kind of kindness, the father gave of the liberalism.

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Frank McDonough: And the sort of the principal stand my view on on the white rose, is that you know it's it's the legacy that they give.

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Frank McDonough: Like Martin Luther King, you know, he said, what did Martin Luther King actually achieve the never became a kind of politician, he was never a sentence there.

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Frank McDonough: He was never a Congressman he was never a precedent, but in a way you listen to a speech and you see what he achieved he achieved in capturing people's hearts and minds, and that is what the white rose do, that is what Sophie shoulder she captures our hearts, she is the person.

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Frank McDonough: And the white rose as well, she is the person we'd like to be if we lived in Nazi Germany, but we know we couldn't be that person.

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Frank McDonough: Because we wouldn't have had that kind of courage, we probably would have been the kind of person like Robert Moore the the.

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Frank McDonough: The policeman the watch he admits that he was taken in by the regime of too many people in Nazi Germany look the other way.

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Frank McDonough: And these were people who didn't want to look the other way they didn't have to face against Nazi Germany they were middle class.

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Frank McDonough: They are good Koreans I had them, they were at university and I think that that speaks volumes for them, I think.

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Frank McDonough: And they were willing, if you like, to put their life on the line, and you know, in the end, what is courage, courage is actually.

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Frank McDonough: Putting your life on the line for an idea or a belief or even in war, you know whether you're a soldier, you know you know we all like to have that kind of courage.

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Frank McDonough: Very few people have that kind of courage and that's why, in a way, we can identify whether in an admiration, this is the problem with with icons like this, we can admire them.

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Frank McDonough: When it comes to actually thinking, would I have done that that's where we sort of park companies in there, because we sort of think Oh yes, I will be the hero, but we all know that in many times in our lives we've not been heroes.

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Lori Weintrob: And I think that beautifully answers, one of the questions.

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Lori Weintrob: That Lawrence hellman had asked about.

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Lori Weintrob: Oh no yeah somebody had asked did it actually make did their selfishness actually make a positive difference, and I think that you just answered that about how how they resonated both in their time and since.

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Lori Weintrob: And I think another thing that's missing from the film is the way in which the other university students reacted to the execution.

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Lori Weintrob: We might assume that that there was shock and horror, but that the other students at the University of Munich applauded the decision to execute them is is sort of shocking and.

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Lori Weintrob: there's a quote from the German from the one of the former German President, you know, often Gal who says that sophie's showing the white rose quote permit us to believe that, at a time, not all Germans were mute and cowardly followers.

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Lori Weintrob: So I don't know if you want to agree or disagree with that is that one of the things that's Sophie show represents that not all Germans were mute and cowardly followers.

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Lori Weintrob: And um.

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Lori Weintrob: yeah and also somebody just asked where they beheaded yet oh in the film shows them as being beheaded so just to confirm is that how they were kills.

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Yes.

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Lori Weintrob: yeah and Nathan, you were gonna say something.

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Nathan Stoltzfus: Well, I just wanted to follow up when the good points that frank was making and it's not just about character, but context the context of German Society if we compare it with the film made in the early 80s by Michael very often called the white rose.

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Nathan Stoltzfus: He shows that the society around.

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Nathan Stoltzfus: The shoals was not just bystanders there was an actual denunciation they were they were collaborators.

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Nathan Stoltzfus: People like the janitor, of course, felt compelled to act on behalf of the good stuff but it shows the bottom up energy.

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Nathan Stoltzfus: characters of course are missing, but I think you know scenes from that other film, for example, where you see Sophie compromising by wearing a Nazi pin in order to buy stamps is a critical kind of insight and, of course.

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Nathan Stoltzfus: it's a very different game, when you start to film at the point of their arrest.

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Lori Weintrob: i'm going to just pull another couple of questions here um.

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Lori Weintrob: Where the capture and executions publicize to discourage other resistors or where they carried out secretly.

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Frank McDonough: The actual newspaper at the time it's actually i've seen it it's not very big it's not actually a very big report it's quite small in that way, I think they they made the show trial by by.

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Frank McDonough: Having Roland Fries or he was hanging judge by having him as the judge presiding over the trials, then obviously you know not came right from Berlin.

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Frank McDonough: You know, like right from the top of the Nazi regime, I think they wanted to make an example of them, shortly after.

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Frank McDonough: Stalingrad so that was the reason why he was wheelchair, because he was a nice a big deal.

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Frank McDonough: Roland Fries like he was the judge at the valkyrie the 1944 trial, and he was known for you believe, as independence in that way, so I think the fact that they brought him down.

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Frank McDonough: show that they wanted to make an example of the white rose Maybe it was the timing, you know, in some ways, it was the timing, they wanted to make an example of them.

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Frank McDonough: What would the same thing have happened in 1940 after the after the victory over France if different circumstances and and people were defined as know I spoke to spoke to her sister when I was writing my book Elizabeth and she said that you know the families, I don't know whether.

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Frank McDonough: Dr Hoover will confirm this, but they suffered as well you know from from the local population as well, they bet that the the idea of a resisting the Nazi re he wasn't popular in Germany, and she said that you know she suffered a lot of ostracism even after the war.

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Lori Weintrob: And and Professor.

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Lori Weintrob: wants you to comment on that about how your family or your mom was and was affected just before there's a question if someone wants to just explain why it's called the white rose why they picked that name.

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Wolfgang Huber: This White rose I might have been the dining hall familiar that's our skin Norman did you get did you mean the name of the white rose.

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Lori Weintrob: yeah can you explain that, as well as.

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Lori Weintrob: Well, tell us about how your family was affected.

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Wolfgang Huber: There are many theories about the name of the vibe I personally prefer that is in the literary allusions to novel by read marbles called the white rose it's.

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Wolfgang Huber: novel written in Mexico and read more wrote was a member of the Spartacus of stand in Munich and he was a declared Communist he was sentenced to death and.

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Wolfgang Huber: flew to Mexico and growth there his novel the right words, and I think it's an.

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Wolfgang Huber: allusion to this novel because it was forbidden anyway, and of course forbidden literature is the best recommendations, you could have for reading and I think that could be sure that many people understood this allusion to this forbidden book, this is one point now my family think.

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Wolfgang Huber: I didn't quite understand the question what was it the bug to my family.

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Lori Weintrob: about the neighbors about how you're if.

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Lori Weintrob: you're aware of how your neighbors responded were they supportive of your family where they critical.

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Wolfgang Huber: yeah it was yes, yes, it was difficult, of course, so if the friends of my mother said well if we should meet on the street I go on the other side of the street place.

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Wolfgang Huber: Because this is necessary that we don't know each other, and this was not a single case, there were some other cases as well, so it was indeed very difficult, but the other point was there was no money at all, and if my mother wouldn't have a very.

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Wolfgang Huber: Great family, they were 11 sisters 11 brethren.

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Wolfgang Huber: And they helped us a good deal but otherwise it would have been very difficult, especially in this time in the last year of the war and even in the time afterwards, it was a very difficult time, it was a bit undernourished and.

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Wolfgang Huber: This also is a sound that it was difficult for us just to survive.

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Wolfgang Huber: But the friends and the white rose, I think, even the best friends would not accept that by two hours, as some people.

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Wolfgang Huber: who had some sort of legitimate resistance to hit I think they most of them treated them as traitors and even in the war afterwards, if you think.

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Wolfgang Huber: Look at.

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Wolfgang Huber: Female resistance, so there are famous names like mildred are knock or Libertas should support isn't there were not so well known in Germany, just because several favorite communism and then the Cold War, you would have a strict strict distinction between.

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Wolfgang Huber: resistance that price okay and resistance that was communist, even if it wasn't really Communist if it could be Communist that was enough to discredited and so.

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Wolfgang Huber: On and shorts boys and didn't have that ECHO in the public opinion that I could have had.

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Lori Weintrob: And, and how many brothers and sisters, did you have.

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Wolfgang Huber: No.

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Oh, we.

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Wolfgang Huber: don't have one sister that was enough.

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Lori Weintrob: So just the two of you and and did your did you and your sister and your children I don't know how many if you have children do they feel a special pride or burden at being the grandchildren or children of Professor uber.

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Wolfgang Huber: Well, somehow, I think we were pride, but we didn't talk about it, not even with each other so.

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Wolfgang Huber: It was some sort of taboo seen me mean if you live with a father, that is executed, this is not the best thing to live in and you always, you have the idea that was something wrong but didn't know it exactly.

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Wolfgang Huber: So this was for a long time I couldn't talk about it, but all that I try to avoid it as possible.

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Wolfgang Huber: In school, of course I didn't talk to anybody about my father, and I think everybody in you, but.

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Wolfgang Huber: Well, they didn't talk to me either, so it was happy.

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Lori Weintrob: Well, today, you should have tremendous pride, he is an incredible role model and it's very, very touching.

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Lori Weintrob: To have you involved with this panel and and the rendering of resistance.

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Lori Weintrob: And you bring up a fascinating question about other women resistors and I know Nathan, you wanted to say a few words, having studied the bound roof, and the rosen straws to protest that there were in fact other women resistors.

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Lori Weintrob: Can they be compared to Sophie show, or is it or the each each active resistance very unique.

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Nathan Stoltzfus: I think it is unique and.

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Nathan Stoltzfus: There were others, it depends what you want to call the resistance or opposition, many of the women in fact that were protesting the crucifix decrease in Bavaria in 1941 were women in kershaw called the women's protest.

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Nathan Stoltzfus: that's often not considered resistance, but.

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Nathan Stoltzfus: Women had a special jurisdiction over family and religion, and there was also that protest in by women 300 according to the secret police in Britain in the rural area in October 1943 for.

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Nathan Stoltzfus: rations and.

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Nathan Stoltzfus: They might be.

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Nathan Stoltzfus: Compared but they're not really, really known and, besides, they shouldn't be compared, because they were really just compare opposing one issue, a single issue resistance that wasn't posing the regime as a whole, like the white rose.

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Lori Weintrob: So that, for example, the rosen stross it was about saving their their family members, compared to this was more about toppling the regime.

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Lori Weintrob: Well, I just wanted to fold in there, one of the questions is what role, did the persecution of Jews play in the white roses motivation to join the resistance.

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Lori Weintrob: It came up a little bit in the clip but you want to you want to try to answer that was what.

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Frank McDonough: I think I think that it wasn't a big factor glucose in leaflet number two they do actually highlight and it's the only leaflet the only resistance leaflet that highlights the measure of the Jews, that was going on in Poland, so you know I think I think sort of.

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Frank McDonough: Opposition to Nazi ISM itself to the idea of Nazi ISM all it stood for and, of course, the genocide flowing out from it, and the fact that mean Sophie does mention.

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Frank McDonough: In air interrogation how she had the Jewish friends that Jewish friend was ostracized so she was aware of the anti semitism, it could not be aware.

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Frank McDonough: Aware of the anti Semitism in German Society and she was aware of it, and it was part of the motivation to get rid of Nazi ISM.

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Frank McDonough: You know Nazi ISM will also she she she she is a mother, you know you about the euthanasia as well.

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Frank McDonough: have children and in hospitals and and and that was a motivation as well, so there were many motivations, I think the.

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Frank McDonough: The main motivation was human rights and freedom, you know that the Nazis were stopping people's human rights and freedom and one of the rights of freedom is that you know.

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Frank McDonough: We are all created equal she will be in favor of that kind of idea Nichols the Nazis were the opposite of that we were not created equal we were actually in a kind of pyramid with the master race at the top.

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Frank McDonough: And if you didn't face it, you came at the bottom, and you know, and at the bottom, where the Jews weren't there and other sort of people they defined as.

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Frank McDonough: You know until mention, so I think that yeah yes it's in there it's part of the kind of the mixture of the white rose that they're against the idea of an unequal society.

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Frank McDonough: That they mentioned the genocide and that's clean, you know at that time you know, nobody was mentioned in the genocide, so they they mentioned the genocide and they thought it will be a stain.

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Frank McDonough: On the German memory for for all for all time and in a way, you know it is something that Germans have to have to live with, they have to live with the past, the past the somebody said that will never pass away.

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Lori Weintrob: um is there any way to measure so there's a few people who are saying, like what was their impact is there any way to measure.

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Lori Weintrob: Both their actions and then the fact that the Allied Forces decided to copy that sixth leaflet and distributes 10s of thousands of them across Germany.

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Lori Weintrob: Can we say that that in itself is, this is an impact is a success, do we know if any of you had given one example I guess of somebody who emulated.

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Lori Weintrob: Sophie show is that is that something you feel that we could say that they did have an impact in promoting resistance during World War Two or during again.

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I think.

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Frank McDonough: I think about the historians hot song, I thought you'd have to say that you know the impact at the time that it existed.

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Frank McDonough: was very, very limited it didn't actually change much at the time they they existed what's important about the white rose, and this is important about many things.

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Frank McDonough: Many great movements don't have an impact at the time they exist, but some have a legacy.

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Frank McDonough: And it's the legacy of the white rose that's important it's that legacy of non violence it's that legacy of human rights it's that it's that legacy of fighting against tyranny standing up against tyranny.

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Frank McDonough: These are the legacies of the white rose and those legacies.

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Frank McDonough: exists today, so what we admired about Sophie show is not the fact that she failed in a life it's that she was a massive success in a legacy, just as we see the same thing.

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Frank McDonough: With Martin Luther King, you know it is dream that without we tap into and it's also Sophie stream and I think he says one point, as to the.

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Frank McDonough: The the woman who's who's the garden in the prison before she's going to be executed, she has a little conversation with her and she says, you know what on the day of the.

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Frank McDonough: Execution she said, you know the small and she said I had the dream and she says, and in the dream I had a baby and she said them and I class folder the baby and I saved the baby, but I fell down the opposite, she said she said, but the baby is our idea it's.

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Lori Weintrob: Beautiful would anyone else, like to make some closing statements as we end this conversation.

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Nathan Stoltzfus: Well, just to that last question again I would raise that very effective remarks in the film downfall, they have that interview with heather Secretary and where she says.

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Nathan Stoltzfus: straight out that you know that that hit her so hard, after many decades of giving yourself a pat she noticed that, because she was young, she noticed that she was.

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Nathan Stoltzfus: In born in the same year as Sophie show and, of course, without the mortar which which didn't come for many decades until the 80s or 90s, that she was talking about that wouldn't have happened.

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Lori Weintrob: and Professor you burst there anything you would like to say before we.

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Wolfgang Huber: Well, if you think of the legacy of the white rose I should think.

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Wolfgang Huber: What they wanted is a simple truth and nothing, not a tentative choose to the simple truth is enough, and I think we all should be keen to.

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Wolfgang Huber: Be ready to accept these simple truths, even if they are not very comfortable so, for instance, to accept the Holocaust is not a comfortable thing for the Germans, but it's the truth, and they have to accept it, and this is the simple truth, no alternative chose could help in that case.

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Lori Weintrob: Thank you so much, it has been so inspiring to reflect on how Sophie cheryl you know raised her voice how she expressed empathy how all the members of the white rose, you know fought against apathy.

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Lori Weintrob: fought against apathy with poetry with humor with commitments you know with hard work, and it is terribly inspiring and.

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Lori Weintrob: We do hope that in our generation and in the next generation, there are others who are inspired by their example and do not applaud those who put down two cents, but actually lift it up.

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Lori Weintrob: So this is, this is the lesson of this panel on February 20 seconds on the anniversary of their execution and and also in thinking about July 13 the anniversary of your father's execution and.

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Lori Weintrob: They should not die in vain their idea their baby there, you know that image of that dream should live on one through us and, and I think the Museum of Jewish heritage for allowing us to share that.

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Lori Weintrob: And there's books there's films there's a museum exhibit at the Wagner college how a cost Center on rescue and resistance that includes it's behind me that includes Sophie shoals story, and of course there's the memorial in Munich and.

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Lori Weintrob: Please continue to discuss their their story, thank you, thank you.

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Sydney Yaeger (she/her): yeah I would just like to echo what laurie said, thank you to all of our panelists and to lori for moderating today, this has been so great, I I personally learned so much.

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Sydney Yaeger (she/her): And thank you to all of you out there who are watching everything we do at the museum is made possible through donor support.

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Sydney Yaeger (she/her): So we hope you'll consider making a donation to support the museum or becoming a member or joining us for our upcoming programs, which you can check out at the link in the zoom chat.

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Sydney Yaeger (she/her): So thank you all so much again and thank special thank you again to our panelists and our moderator have a great afternoon, thank you, I.