Kaleidoscope of topics


I don't want to clutter the main page of Passing the Torch (Essays) with too many topics. I will collect articles here until there are fifteen or twenty. Then I'll create a new single-topic page.

If you've ever glanced at our Call for Papers, you know how vast the unplowed ground is. From biographies to interdisciplinary, we have more questions. And frankly, it's the reason I stay puzzled at people regurgitating legend.

In the meantime, this should give you a good idea of open areas of study!

Research tools: Genealogy, translation, old cursive, archives, travel, photography, newspapers

  • Genealogy as research tool. If you choose to use genealogy in your research, keep in mind that you must apply historical methodology to your results, same as with any other text. Double-check your information!
  • L’dor v’dor: The power of family stories. Oral histories, traditions, prayers, feasts, fasting, food - all flow from generation to generation. These stories provide historical context.
  • Found places. "Place" is an important concept in our writing. Birthplace, current hometown, places we go back to again and again ... all of these define elements of our Being. True for White Rose friends as well.
  • Places, a reprise. Before you bury yourself too deeply in libraries or archives studying White Rose resistance, spend two or three weeks in this corner of the world. Walk it, bike it, hike it. Eat where locals eat. Understand who these people WERE.
  • Not your usual translations. Projects edition. If you have a collection of German language documents that date back to 1933 – 1945, or an endeavor encompassing multiple elements or resources, we would be interested in speaking with you.

Historical context

  • The debate: White Rose as symbol? Can people be national “symbols” – untouchable? What is the definition of a hero? How should we proceed when a legend becomes entrenched? If you are a casual nonfiction reader, or if details of the fight to portray White Rose resistance accurately bother you, you might want to skip this post. Target audience: Serious scholars.
  • Wikipedia and the White Rose. So many middle and high school students use Wikipedia for their essays about White Rose. They are learning it wrong. Unlearning is hard.
  • Strong foundations. In White Rose History, Volume II, I spent a great deat of time fleshing out so-called fringe characters. Alfred von Martin. Josef Furtmeier. Käthe Schüddekopf. And more. They may not have been front and center, but we hear their words in the leaflets, we see them in the dynamic of the circle. We cannot understand White Rose resistance without them.
  • Nuremberg: A Film for Our Days. The scope of the crimes seemed to nullify all notions of justice.-Howard Heinz Triest.
  • A novel way to “do” White Rose. Please read this post as a call to action: Tell the true story. Pay attention to details. Even if White Rose is tangential or in the background, ensure you get it right.
  • June 17, 1953: Confronting the past. Each man wishes to be acquitted of his complicity – everyone does so, then lies back down to sleep with a calm, clear conscience. But he may not acquit himself. Everyone is guilty, guilty, guilty!
  • The kinder, gentler Hitler, or, the 1936 Berlin Olympics. From the moment the pageantry started on August 1, 1936, Hitler endeavored to show the world how progressive Germany had become. 
  • Karma for Nazis, or, cigarettes made in Dresden. History is never a direct trail of logical events.
  • Tapestries. Warp and weft. Once you hear Martin Hake's words, 'Sometimes it can be next to impossible to discern the difference between perpetrators and victims,' the tapestry of White Rose resistance begins to make sense.
  • Ken Burns, Sam Waterston, and the White Rose. White Rose leaflets, for which they gave their lives!, came from the depths of anguish and sorrow over injustice. You’re not hearing me. You’re hearing their voice, their witness.
  • Learning from Henry Sledge. Look for the silences. Watch for gaps. Observe questions that are not asked. And start digging there. Ask the questions you’ve heard are “better not asked.” That’s where the truth begins.

Philosophy and religion

  • White Rose Holy Wars. Focus on the fight these White Rose friends did in fact engage in: A fight against entrenched clergy who toed the Party line. A fight against false honor, false virtue, false humility, false faith.
  • Logical disconnects. Freedom and honor. Those concepts were abused for twelve horrible years eighty years ago. We must not allow them to be abused again.
  • Moral dilemmas. I was convinced that I must act on my inner convictions. I believed that this inner duty was greater than the oath that I had sworn as a soldier. - Hans Scholl.
  • Moral dilemmas – the hard topics. The decision to resist Hitler’s regime was based on informed dissent: Knowledge of specific wrongs, specific injustices, that had rendered the National Socialist government criminal, and illegitimate.
  • Moral dilemmas – the hard topics, continued. We cannot honor them if we don’t engage in the same debates, the same deliberations, as they did. If we “honor” them without engaging, we’ve created pedestals and haloes, nothing more.
  • Moral roadblock: Romans 13. In 2024, justice still matters. Doing what is right still matters. Living well with one’s conscience still matters.
  • Ethical religion. Despite the corruption we see all too often related to religious personalities seeking power, real ethics, real faith *serves*. Reminded of that with the death of Rosalynn Carter... 
  • Death and the White Rose: Part One - A series for Memorial Day remembrances. As we head to Memorial Day weekend, to fun on the shore or celebrations with graduates, join me in remembering, grieving, standing on the shoulders of these White Rose friends who gave their all.
  • Death and the White Rose: Part Two - A series for Memorial Day remembrances. The White Rose: Death, commingled with love and youth. Fragile purity. Faith – not religion, but honest to goodness spirituality. A symbol to remember as we dig deeper in to their story.
  • Death and the White Rose: Part Three - A series for Memorial Day remembrances. On this Memorial Day, I challenge us also to remember and revere those who made the ultimate sacrifice fighting against a Fatherland they loved. May we never know the darkness that comes from tyranny.
  • Reflections. A Memorial Day contemplation. "The value of a person can be seen in the dignity of his death. How and for what a person will die defines that person himself." Otl Aicher, writing of December 1942.

Food: Hillel-Stammtisch Project

  • The Hillel-Stammtisch Cooking Project. If your family recipe has a story connected to it, please add that as well. Our cookbook will be a history lesson too, reminding us how interconnected we all are.
  • General conversion tips and notes. Quick reference section. In progress.
  • Food talk. As long as a recipe could be remembered, could be argued about, could be visualized, the person connected with that recipe still lived. - Dr. Myrna Goldenberg.

Notes from the past

  • The heaviness of writing (March 2001). Sometimes we’ve got to back away from the things that normally consume our lives and stand in the sunshine a while. No better way to clear out cobwebs hidden by the dark. Journal entries from March 2001.
  • Recovered memories - 2002. I journaled sporadically while writing the final, seventh draft of our White Rose Histories, as well as during our 2002 meetings with White Rose families. Including, of course, white asparagus with Erich and Hertha Schmorell!
    • May 31, 2013 newsletter. Lifting of a ban on German-Jewish publications from 1933-1945. The Holocaust at Eton College. And, Israelis cheering for... Bayern München? Wha-at?
  • Camarillo, California: Our 2013 White Rose conference. It is to the credit of the individuals who came to our 2013 conference that each person consciously chose to seek common ground. That is the spirit of White Rose. If only our microcosm could go macro.
  • October 7, 2013 newsletter. Rita Whitman Steingold and the Last Survivor of Chełmo. Anna Schmidt and All God's Children. Alternate celebrations. A good month for remembering resistance during the Shoah.

Image is 1903 postcard from Blumberg, Germany. Image is public domain.

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