Wednesday, 20 February 2008

Sophie Scholl and the White Rose

In two days time it will be the 65th anniversary of the death of Sophie Scholl, her brother Hans Scholl and their friend Christoph Probst. The trio spent their last hours in the Gestapo prison at Stadelheim, Munich, before they went to the guillotine.
Sophie Scholl was a 21-year old student. Her so-called crime, and that of the other two, was the distribution of leaflets. Leaflets that went against the philosophy of the Nazi machine. The so-called judge, a cruel man named Roland Freisler, sentenced the 3 young students to death. This was duly carried out on the 22nd February 1943. Sophie Scholl's words on the way to her death were: Look, the sun is shining.
Poet-in-Residence respectfully requests that you consider visiting Alan Morrison's Recusant website (link at left) to read P-i-R's tribute (posted under P-i-R's real identity - Gwilym Williams) to the moral courage and integrity of this young girl who paid for her words so bravely with her life. Sophie Scholl and her friends in the White Rose are real heroes, a much abused word today, for example - in connection with young men who play football for megabucks, in this rather sad and disfunctional world.

haiku

look
the sun
is shining

Sophie Scholl - 1943
Posted by at

6 comments:

  1. Isabel20 February 2008 at 21:11

    This is so sad.

    I am reading a book about the 1941 Battle for Moscow. In it, 3 or 4 high school students are sent to Siberia because they protested a liberal teacher's exile to a gulag.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Gwil W20 February 2008 at 21:23

    I'd like to look in the library for it. Maybe others would too. Can you give title and author?

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  3. Isabel20 February 2008 at 22:34

    It's Moscow 1941 - A City and Its People at War - Rodric Braithwaite

    The children are just a small portion of the book. He talks about all sorts of people affected before, during, and maybe after the battle.

    Factory workers, rich people, teachers, doctors, prisoners, soldiers, etc.

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  4. Gwil W20 February 2008 at 22:45

    Thanks for those details. Much appreciated.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Anonymous16 March 2013 at 02:51

    Hans Scholl, Sophie Scholl and Christoph Probst were not hanged but beheaded by a guillotine in Stadelheim prison. The executioner was Johann Reichhardt.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Gwil W16 March 2013 at 08:45

    Thank you for pointing it out Anonymous, I've corrected that mistake. By the way, there's a poem On the Feldherrenhalle Steps on the blog.

    ReplyDelete

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