“History is healing”

Every once in a while, I receive an email or DM or message from a reader that lights up the night sky and makes me realize that, yes indeed, this matters. It matters a great deal.

When Alaina Tennant requested Chapter 60 following our April 19, 1943 post, she said the following:

Last night I was feeling like a very small person in a very big world. Ohio just passed a long bill of egregious censorship laws for universities — my university. And my beloved American history museums and public libraries are also under attack. (Which is unimaginable and infuriating.)

I also felt like a fraud — because here I go talking about Alexander and Hans, but what am I doing to make a difference? I read another news story and, God, I feel too small.

And then, for some reason, reading that paragraph about Traute Lafrenz — “All her courage, that cat-like ability to stay one step ahead of her interrogator, vanished in the courtroom. She was inexplicably embarrassed, strangely shy. She could offer no defense for her actions.” — It helped me somehow. I needed a reminder that in that courtroom and in the studio and the apartments and the Schmorell house, not one of these people I love so dearly knew what would happen in the future. They didn’t know who their words would reach, or who would visit their graves. They were doing what they felt was right. And that was enough.

History is healing.

Yes, Alaina, it is healing. It is also inspiring. Not one of those students, not one of the adults who worked alongside them, felt courageous or strong or powerful. Except perhaps Hans Scholl, and his was a false courage, propped up by pervetin, the form of crystal meth that made him take risks he should not have.

Otherwise, they took their resistance efforts one day at a time. They spoke the truths they had internalized. They labored in silence, in darkness, small dim candles overpowered by evil of a magnitude that suffocated them. They hoped against hope that other students would take up their cause and stand beside them. They wished that their readers would throw off the chains of Nazism and shout from the rooftops that this was WRONG.

All while knowing that the chances that that would happen were at best two percent, and likely less than zero. That they were quite alone.

I remember sitting with Lilo in her modest apartment in Starnberg. She never turned the handle on that stubborn duplicating machine. She did not take part in the “scattering operation” when they placed leaflets in doorways and streetcars. She did not type a single envelope, nor did she paste postage stamps on finished mailers, or drop leaflets in the mail.

But. Lilo’s home was always open to Alex, Hans, Christl, and Willi. She baked cookies and made tea for their treasonous discussions. She let Alex pound Beethoven on her piano as he fought his demons. He made his first attempts at Down With Hitler templates for their graffiti campaign right there in her tiny living room. She introduced Hans and Schurik to Falk Harnack. She met up with ‘the boys’ when Falk came to town to discuss their planned expansion. She accompanied Falk to the Scholls’ apartment for the disastrous debate in February 1943.

Lilo saw to it that Alex’s forged passport was properly stamped and bound. She and Nikolay gave him provisions for his aborted escape. She let Alex stay in her apartment and once that became too dangerous for Alex, found him refuge with their art teacher.

During her Gestapo interrogation, she managed not to incriminate a single person. When she was released — something that astounded both her and her interrogator — she continued her beautiful deceptions, protecting Alex and Nikolay and Falk and everyone else who faced Freisler on April 19, 1943.

Yet when we sat in her home, she deflected any and all praise for her heroism. No, she insisted, I did not do enough. I am not like them. I am not a hero.

What are you talking about, we answered. You lost everything. Everything. You lost your husband on the Russian front. You lost your White Rose friends. You lost your family, who disowned you for your resistance. You lost your inheritance.

No, she countered. I was a coward. I could have done more, should have done more.

My mom asked her: Knowing what you know now, that you would lose everything, would you do it again?

Lilo waited before answering. Finally softly. Yes, I would do it all over again.

In my book, that is courage. That is the ultimate sacrifice. To know you would lose everything, and to know you would not change a thing.

Lilo was hardly alone in that sentiment. Over and over, we heard those words. We would not change a thing. We would do it all over again. Traute Lafrenz, Erich Schmorell, Hertha Schmorell, Herta Probst, Micha Probst, Gustel Saur, Anneliese Knoop-Graf, Clara Geyer, Hermann Geyer, Martin Geyer, Elisabeth Geyer, Wilhelm Geyer Junior, Friedrich Hänssler, Elisabeth Hartnagel nee Scholl, Fritz Hartnagel, the Daubs, Hubert Furtwängler, Otmar Hammerstein, Susanne Hirzel, Hermann Krings, these people with whom I conversed and corresponded for decades — not one of them regretted what they did.

Many stated that they regretted they did not do more. Sitting across from them or reading their letters, dumbfounded by what appeared to be imposter syndrome, I could not believe that they did not comprehend how great their actions were, how encouraging their brightly lit candles in that dark era indeed were. And ARE.

In our own era, where injustice is taking root all around us, I get it now. I understand that desire to do MORE. And feeling overwhelmed when I cannot.

Alaina, for you, for your friends, for everyone reading this, for freedom fighters who are suffocating from the injustices perpetrated on every side, feeling incapable of fighting back:

Do what you can do. That is all that is demanded of us.

We’re not all called to march. We’re not all called to write essays. We’re not all called to form a human chain to protect immigrants from ICE. We’re not all called to submit briefs or appear as defense counsel in court or collect data on behalf of the ACLU. We’re not all called to run for political office. We’re not all called to stand up in town halls and rebut offensive speech. We’re not all called to donate to worthy causes or political campaigns.

We do what we can do. Nothing more, nothing less.

And yes, Alaina, there will be times that the most courageous among us knows overwhelming fear. Traute Lafrenz was one of the bravest among our White Rose friends. During her second indictment in 1944, Nazi prosecutors accused her of aiding and abetting a Jewish family in her neighborhood, of having a particularly radical attitude, of having a “special talent” of maneuvering literary discussions in a political direction, of being “an especially free spirit,” the ultimate Nazi insult.

Yet even Traute became “inexplicably embarrassed” and “strangely shy” when confronted by Roland Freisler.

It is quite all right to be courageously fearful or fearfully courageous. We’re not superhumans. We are fragile human beings facing off against a powerful and incredibly wealthy — and unjust — machine.

Not one of these people I love so dearly knew what would happen in the future. They didn’t know who their words would reach, or who would visit their graves. They were doing what they felt was right. And that was enough.

Thank you for expressing your vulnerability in such a beautiful manner.

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The above information is fully footnoted in our White Rose histories. Please purchase them for access to that material! To order digital version of White Rose History, Volume I: Coming Together (January 1933-April 30, 1942), click here. To order digital version of White Rose History, Volume II, click here. WRH1 is © 2002, 2003, 2007 by Denise Elaine Heap. WRH2 is © 2002, 2007 by Denise Elaine Heap.

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