59 Years ago today, devout Christian Sophie Scholl of the White Rose was put on trial by the Nazi government and executed for distributing pamphlets that called for an end to Hitlers regime. Nazi justice took a mere day for a show trial and execution, as justice itself was marred by a corrupt government.
The White Rose was a German resistance group that formed to speak out against Nazi Germany. They created six pamphlets that they discreetly passed out to people calling for an end to Hitler's regime. It's primary contributors were caught and executed with their executions occurring on the same day as their trials.
Their call for freedom did not go unheard as their final pamphlet reached allied forces who decided to make mass copies of the work and dropped them over Berlin from war planes. Although the White Rose did not have a decisive impact on the war, it's members showed the importance of moral duty in standing up to injustice and evil. It also showed that an educated people can be privy to an oppressive government even as they themselves are being oppressed. So here's a poem I wrote last year as tribute to the White Rose who resisted oppression in the heart of mankind's darkest and lowest point, the Nazi regime, who not only oppressed (and killed) 12 million in cold blood, but stripped an entire nation of its freedom, freedom from thought and freedom from expression.
The White Rose
Of heroism the world should know
Of freedoms light and how it can glow
Of resistance in the face of foes
Standing brave, is the White Rose
To think for them what sedition brings
Freedom took them to the guillotine
Their bloodless battle can’t go unseen
For all should know what the White Rose means
Huber, Graf, and Wittenstein,
In darkness they made freedom shine
Probst with Hans and Sophie Scholl
Made Germany ponder liberty's role
Amidst the backdrop of tyranny
Where the world would face adversity
They printed papers of freedom’s plea
To wake the conscience of Germany
In secret they would take freedom’s fight
With no worry of their individual plight
In death their faith was their delight
Liberty eternally in their sight
To wellsprings in life where liberty flows
Where the thinker can think before he knows
Of rights and wrongs as goodness glows
Honor is the place of the White Rose
