Ten World War II Heroes

In this series, you will meet:

• A teenager and her young sister who had 13 Jews in their attic for 2.5 years.
• An Olympian who survived 47 days on a raft without food or water and a Japanese prison camp, and came to Christ afterwards.
• Three Geman teenagers who spread illegal pamphlets with the truth about Nazi Germany.
• A group who saved 700 children - in a concentration camp.
• A Catholic who attempted to assassinate Hitler - and nearly succeeded.

You can see why I wrote this series and the table of contents here. The heroes I featured were:

1. Miracles Still Happen: Diet Eman
2. All In His Hands: Louie Zamperini 
3. The Jar of Life: Irena Sendler 
4. Words, Not Guns: Helmuth Hübener 
5. For God and Country: Claus von Stauffenberg
6. We Will Not Be Silent: Sophie Scholl 
7. The Power of Forgiveness: Eva Kor 
8. A Company of Heroes: Richard Winters
9. The Mystery Behind the Attic Wall: Stefania Podgorska 
10. Resilience and Rescue: Jack Werber

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BIG thank you to everyone who read this series and/or pinned it! Thank you so much!

I hope you all enjoyed this series! Some nights, I was editing WAY past midnight and worn but, but I had lots of fun writing each story, and I also learned a lot from it. I hope you found each post inspiring and informative! :) Continue to check back on my blog or follow my blog board on Pinterest! Thanks!

These are my top ten World War II heroes.

Who are yours?

10 WWII Heroes: Jack Werber 10/10

Historical photos are not mine. They are used for educational purposes. I own all other photographs. You may use all of my photographs, as long as proper credit is given.

This is the tenth in a ten part series about the heroes of World War II. You can view the introduction and table of contents to this series here.

At the beginning of each story I will give a maturity rating from 1-5. 1 means the story is appropriate for younger ages, and 5 means it is appropriate for teens and up. This story is rated 4.5.

Well, this is the last post! I hope you all enjoyed this series! I had lots of fun writing it! And, I learned quite a bit through my in-depth research.

Jack Werber is by far the least-known person I have featured so far. However, his story, and that of the Buchenwald Resistance is so amazing I had to include it in here.

Born in 1914, Jack Werber grew up in Radom, Poland. Out of a hundred thousand residents in pre-WWII Radom, only about a third were Jewish. His mother died when he was five, and being the youngest of eight siblings he was often spoiled.

Before the war began, Jack was active in Zionist movements, planning to get to Palestine (now Israel). To get to Palestine, each person needed a certificate from the British. (The British owned Palestine at the time) Married couples were preferred because they could share a certificate. Because of this, some people faked a marriage to share a certificate. It was in this time of his life Jack met Rachel Weintraub. She was a devoted Zionist and the two had a lot in common. They married in 1937, and planned to go to Palestine. However, Jack's father did not want his youngest child to leave so far away. So instead, the two stayed in Poland and in 1938, they had a baby girl they named Emma.

In September 1939, the Germans invaded Poland, starting World War II. Jack, among other Jews, was promptly arrested at random was was taken to the concentration camp Buchenwald. At first, Jack's only concern was working and surviving. However, in 1942, Jack was asked if he wanted to join the Buchenwald International Underground. He accepted, and his first job was to find out if inmates in charge were abusing their position. If they were, Jack would report them, and then the person would be replaced.

Liberation. Werber is on the far right. 

The Buchenwald Resistance

Originally run by German communists and social democrats in the early 1940s, by the end of the war the Buchenwald Resistance ran the majority of the camp and eventually liberated it as the Americans drew near.
Since the Nazis were lazy and couldn't run the whole camp, Buchenwald was run by "prisoner functionaries", which were basically prisoners in charge of other prisoners. Many of these prisoners were criminals, mostly convicted murderers. They of course were hated by the other inmates. The Buchenwald Resistance began catching these murderers in crimes (such as stealing), get them sent to the quarry (certain death), and then the resistance would replace these inmates with political prisoners - more humane people.

Saving 700 children

The Nazis began sending masses of Jewish people to concentration camps in mid 1944 to 1945. Until then, Jack had no knowledge of his wife, Rachel or his daughter, Emma. In 1944, a friend had told him that both his wife and daughter were murdered at Auschwitz concentration camp. Jack was heart broken.

Buchenwald children at liberation

But something happened in August of that same year. A train full of about seven hundred young boys, ages six to sixteen, arrived at the camp. One of these boys was the Novel-Peace Prize winning author Elie Wiesel. Seeing these young children brought back memories of Emma, and with the resistance, Jack became fanatical about saving them. The non-Jewish underground did not oppose to this, but children were not as great a priority as politicals and other adults. Jack, however, made it his mission to save as many children as possible.
The children were hidden all over the camp, with very few actually working. For the undocumented children, food came from the medical building and the prisoners who had German wives that sent them food. Jack was a barrack secretary and cared for about 150 children in Block 23. Gustav Schiller, who many recall with kindness, was the block leader of Block 66, where Elie Wiesel was.
Starting in September 1944, there was even a makeshift school that was set up for some of the children. The children learned Yiddish, Hebrew, poetry and history. Jack remembers one eight year-old refuse to go to classes, saying, "Why should I go to school? I won't come out alive anyway."
The children were always kept in the barracks, and great measures were taken to prevent the Nazis from entering the barracks. The main excuse was with all the diseases, the Nazis were sure to catch something if they entered the barrack.

As the Americans cornered the camp, the Nazis fled. The heavily armed resistance took over the camp. At last, on April 11, 1945, they were liberated - and 700 children were saved. Jack had survived 5.5 years in Buchenwald. The Americans were met joyously and gave them food and medical relief. Photos of Buchenwald child survivors can be found here. (no graphic images)

While searching for relatives, Jack met camp survivor Millie Drezner, and married her in January 1946 and the two moved to the United States in May of that year. Jack made a huge profit from the Davy Crockett fad in the 1950s and later invested that money in real estate. He and Millie lived very happily for sixty years. Jack and Millie were interviewed by USHMM (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum) in 1989. This interview can be found here.

In late November 2006, Jack died of a heart attack in New York. He was 92 years old. He has told his story in his brutal, unflinching memoir Saving Children. Millie recently wrote a memoir called Two Rings, and although I didn't like it as much as Saving Children, it includes more post-war stories than Jack's memoir. There is a documentary called The Boys of Buchenwald about the rescue, but I have not seen it. For some reason, the rescue and resistance seems to be little-known and few books or documentaries have been dedicated to the subject. Since I have and will continue to find amazing little-known stories like this, I suppose my research of World War II will never be over.

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In memory of all the inmates in Buchenwald, the resistance, and those who lived to bear witness.

If you enjoyed this post, please comment and share this post! It means a lot. 

Thank you so much!

10 WWII Heroes: Stefania Podgorska 9/10

Historical photos are not mine. They are used for educational purposes. I own all other photographs. You may use all of my photographs, as long as proper credit is given.

This is the ninth in a ten part series about the heroes of World War II. You can view the introduction and table of contents to this series here.

At the beginning of each story I will give a maturity rating from 1-5. 1 means the story is appropriate for younger ages, and 5 means it is appropriate for teens and up. This story is rated 3.

This post was originally going to be about Tuvia Bielski and the Bielski partisans. However, I have been writing all fair week for the fair newsletter and didn't have the time to research for the Bielski's.  There are many resources on the Bielski's and I may write about them in the future.

Helene and Stefania Podgorska

Stefania (otherwise known as Fusia) Podgorska was born in 1925 in Poland. She grew up on a farm in a good Catholic family. Stefania's father died in 1938 from an illness, so their mother was left to raise seven children alone.

In 1939, she moved with her sister in Pryzemysl, Poland. At the time, she was 14. She found a job at a grocery store run by a Jewish family, the Diamants. When the Germans invaded, she moved in with them. The Germans occupied Pryzemysl in June 1941, when Stefania was 16.

All roads were blocked, so to Stefania's despair, she could not go home to see if her family was okay. Months later, when she finally left the Diamants, she rushed home, only to find out her mother and brother had been taken to Germany as slave laborers. Her terrified 6 year-old sister, Helene, was staying with neighbors. Stefania and her sister stayed in their home comfortably. 1942 brought news of the liquidation of the ghetto and Stefania desperately wanted to help her friends. At the time, she was helping trade the Diamants' valuables for food.

Max Diamant

Time passed. Stefania heard a knock on the door, and in came a strange man – crying and bleeding terribly. It was the son of the Diamants, Max. He had frantically jumped out of a cattle car headed to the concentration camp Belzec, with only a loaf of bread underneath his shirt cushioning his fall. He had gone to multiple non-Jewish friends, but none would help him. Max begged Stefania to hid him, and Stefania readily agreed. Helene, although a bit uncertain at first, agreed to keep the secret.

Stefania planned to hid him for the night, but a night soon turned into days and days quickly turned to weeks. As anyone, Max had friends and family he was desperate to save. Much to Stefania's distress,  Max promised his brother's fiance that Stefania would hide them. Those people began telling others that Stefania would hide them, and those people told “just one or two” others. Stefania began praying, looking for a bigger house. Her search led to renting a large cottage with two rooms, a large kitchen, and a large attic. Max built a fake wall in the attic, concealing the Jews. When one looked in the attic, one would see the fake wall. Pretty soon, Stefania and Helene had thirteen Jews hidden in the upstairs attic.

The most notable part of Stefania's story was one of the rescues. Stefania was hiding two Jewish children, and the children's fathers bribed a postman to help them escape from the ghetto and take them to Stefania's house. A few minutes after they were supposed to be there, two Polish police officers and two German police officers surrounded her house! Stefania and Max anxiously awaited for three hours before Stefania decided to ask them what they were doing.

The officers wouldn't tell her, but Stefania was firm and undaunted. They finally told her they had a tip that two Jews were going to escape the ghetto, but they didn't believe it. “Orders are orders,” one of them said.

Stefania went to a church to pray. When she went back to her house, it was a different ambiance. The policemen were gone, and a few minutes later the postman arrived.

Relief flooded everyone, and the postman told his story – he had gotten lost!

On a strict rationing system, Stefania quickly realized feeding thirteen people would be a challenge. The main way to get food was through the black market, but you needed money or valuables. After much persistence, Stefania received a job at a German factory. She had a good Polish boyfriend, but was uncertain if he would keep her secret. She had a picture of a Nazi officer, and pretended she was dating him. Her boyfriend was speechless, and left. It broke Stefania's heart, but she believed she did the right thing.
One day, a German officer came to Stefania's door and decided to convert the place into a German hospital. She had only two hours to pack up her things and leave. She prayed, and a voice told her to stay, that everything would turn out alright in the end. Like clockwork, the German came and told her she wouldn't have to move. However, they were going to take over half of her cottage. Stefania faced dilemmas and angst on a daily basis. Her thirteen Jews had to be extremely quiet because the walls were very thin.
Spring came and the Russians began bombing their town, and all of the Germans fled her house in fear of being caught or bombed. Nurses urged her to come, but Stefania bravely refused. At last, on July 27, 1944, they were all free.
After two and a half years in the attic, all thirteen of the Jewish people Stefania hid had survived the war. After the war, Max asked Stefania to marry him and to his delight, she said yes. Max changed his name to Josef and the couple later moved to America. Max/Josef became a dentist. Helene became a physician and she still lives in Poland. In 1979, Stefania and Helene were awarded the title Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem.

According to a thorough research, Stefania is still alive – living in California. Her story is featured in the movie Hidden in Silence. I recently found the movie for $1, and snatched it up!! This film is free on Amazon Prime. The movie is extremely accurate, down to how Stefania broke up with her boyfriend to the lady running out screaming because of typhus fever. I first heard about Stefania's story in the book Women Heroes of World War II by Kathryn Atwood, which was also a great book.

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In memory of the Righteous Gentiles and the brave women who fought for freedom and justice.

If you enjoyed this post, please comment and share this post! It means a lot. 

Thank you so much!

10 WWII Heroes: Richard Winters 8/10

Historical photos are not mine. They are used for educational purposes. I own all other photographs. You may use all of my photographs, as long as proper credit is given.

This is the eighth in a ten part series about the heroes of World War II. You can view the introduction and table of contents to this series here.

At the beginning of each story I will give a maturity rating from 1-5. 1 means the story is appropriate for younger ages, and 5 means it is appropriate for teens and up. This story is rated 5. I would not recommend the below resources to anyone under 12. However, for teens and up, these are fantastic resources.

Richard Winters, Public domain

Richard "Dick" Winters is probably the most well-known person that I've featured so far. He was born on January 21, 1918 in Ephrata, Pennsylvania. In college, Winters dedicated his life to his studies and part-time job; forfeiting his social life and giving up his favorite sport, wrestling. In 1941, he graduated with a B.S. in Economics and had the highest academic standing in business college.

Richard Winters and Lewis Nixon

After enlisting in late August of the same year, Winters received basic training at Croft, South Carolina. Afterwards, he began training draftees and volunteers. After passing several tests, he qualified for the Officer Candidate School in Fort Benning, Georgia, and that is where he met his long-time buddy Lewis Nixon. Following graduation from OCS in July 1942, Winters knew he wanted to become a paratrooper. Because there was no position available at the time, he trained another group of draftees at Croft. Five weeks later Winters was assigned to the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment (PIR) at Camp Toccoa in Georgia. At Toccoa, he was a second lieutenant under first lieutenant Herbert Sobel. It was also in Toccoa where he joined E Company - better known as Easy Company. An experimental unit, few men in the 506th PIR had military experience, and the training was rigorous. One of the training exercises was called Currahee - "three miles up (a hill) and three miles down". "Currahee!" later became Easy's motto.

Richard Winters

After Toccoa, Easy Company was sent to England. Although Easy was warned about the strict rationing in Britain, an elderly couple quite enjoyed Winters and invited him to tea. This sweet couple had a son who had died while serving in the Royal Air Force. When the officers barracks became too crowded, the couple offered Winters into their home, which he greatly accepted. He believed that they were "truly preparing himself for what was to come".
During that time in England, for nearly ten months, Easy Company trained in preparation for D-Day.
Just after one o'clock in the morning on June 6, 1944, Winters parachuted out of a plane and landed in France.
A few hours later, Winters led an attack that destroyed a battery of German howitzers that were firing on principal exits of Utah Beach. Although Winters led the attack with only 13 men, it is estimated nearly 50 Germans were guarding the weapons.
Winters heroic actions and leadership skills have been credited for saving many lives. Winters greatest quality - and something he feels very strongly about - is leadership. He believed that getting to know the men made it easier to inspire them. At the same time, he wanted to respect and have a close relationship with his men, yet command and discipline them accordingly. Winters believed if Easy's first commander Herbert Sobel would have led them during the war, casualties would have been more common.

Easy Company; England June 5, 1944

The first of July brought big news - Winters was once again promoted, this time to captain. On July 12, Easy pulled back and returned to England.
Operation Market Garden came in Holland in September 1944. Unfortunately, this airborne mission was unsuccessful. In the cold winters, Easy Company was in Bastogne, part of the Battle of the Bulge. One of the most memorable Easy Company moments was in April 1945. The war was coming to a close, and the men are wondering why Hitler dragged them from their wonderful homes in the US to this stupid war in Europe. While patrolling outside of Easy's headquarters, a few of Easy's men came across something strange, and immediately alerted Winters. The strange location Easy Company ran into was a concentration camp - Kaufering IV, a subcamp of Dachau. The conditions in Kaufering were horrific, with corpses strewn about everywhere. The Nazis had fled the camp and locked the inmates inside. Coming face-to-face with Nazi cruelty, they truly realized why they were fighting.

Richard Winters with a picture of Damien Lewis,
who played him in the miniseries Band of Brothers

After the war, Winters quietly settled down, and worked at Lewis Nixon's family business in New Jersey, Nixon Nitration Works. Winters married Ethel Estoppey in May 1948, and they lived happily
together for over sixty years. Winters trained draftees during the Korean War. After a number of miscellaneous jobs, he retired in 1997. He was awarded several awards for his actions and leadership during World War II.

In Hershey, Pennsylvania on January 2, 2011, Richard Winters died at 92 years of age. Very humble, he requested a private funeral. His grave simply says, "Richard D. Winters World War II 101st Airborne."
A 12-foot bronze statue dedicated to all of the US troops was unveiled in France on the 68th anniversary of D-Day, June 6, 2012. The statue was dedicated to all the young men who died during those fateful days.

An Easy veteran walks past the Richard Winters statue
(From the US Army website)

Easy Company participated in the most notable battles of World War II. Their exploits were featured in the bestseller Band of Brothers by Stephen Ambrose. Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks turned the book into a 10-part miniseries in 2001.  Band of Brothers is the highest rated mini-series on IMDb. The 10-part series has an average rating of 9.6 from over 128,000 reviewers. Winters wrote a memoir based on his experiences, entitled Beyond Band of Brothers. I would highly recommend both resources for high school and up. The miniseries is rated R for violence and profanity. It's violent. It's war. The liberation of a Nazi concentration camp isn't easy to watch. It has over 60 F-words. The beginning of pisode 9 has a 15-second scene with nudity. You can skip the nudity scene, because it has nothing to do with the story. Other than that scene and another around episode 6 (the men are showering and you can see their backside) no other nudity/sexual content is present. ClearPlay has edited versions of the series, but I would not recommend editing a lot of violence. I mean, Steven Spielberg is very serious when it comes to editing Schindler's List. He makes it clear he did not want any concentration camp nudity or violence to be edited when it aired on TV - it was all crucial to the film. That's how I feel about the violence in Band of Brothers.

Although Winters' leadership skills made him the most famous, all of the men of Easy Company are heroes. The end of the series Band of Brothers included a documentary, where the real men of Easy Company shared stories about the war. The classic ending line was Major Dick Winters quoting a passage in a letter he had received, "I cherish the memories of a question my grandson asked me the other day. He said, 'Grandpa were you a hero in the war?' Grandpa said no, but I served in a company of heroes."

For more information and pictures on Winters and Easy Company, you can see my Pinterest board here and the tumblr account Letters to Easy Company.

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In memory of the men of Easy Company. Thank you for your service and bravery!

If you enjoyed this post, please comment and share this post! It means a lot. 

Thank you so much!

10 WWII Heroes: Eva Kor 7/10

Historical photos are not mine. They are used for educational purposes. I own all other photographs. You may use all of my photographs, as long as proper credit is given.

This is the seventh in a ten part series about the heroes of World War II. You can view the introduction and table of contents to this series here.

At the beginning of each story I will give a maturity rating from 1-5. 1 means the story is appropriate for younger ages, and 5 means it is appropriate for teens and up. This story is rated 3, with resources and teachers guide for middle schoolers.

Eva Kor (the little girl on the left)

Forgiveness is a topic that has been up for debate for ages. One of my favorite quotes is from Mahatma Gandhi: "The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is an attribute of the strong." C.S. Lewis also rightly stated, "Everyone says forgiveness is a lovely idea, until they have something to forgive."

Eva Mozes and her twin sister Miriam were born January 30, 1934. They were only five years old when Hitler invaded Poland, starting World War II. Her father was Alexander Mozes, a wealthy farmer. The Mozes' were the only Jewish family in their little village in Portz, Romania. Eva's father was sure the Nazis wouldn't care about them. "My father said as long as you say your prayers, did the good deeds that God wanted you to do, and lived so far away from the big city - that somehow we'd escape." Eva said. "The Nazis won't come here for six Jews." Eva's father was wrong.

In the spring of 1944, the family was taken to a ghetto, and a few weeks later they were on a 70-hour long trip to Auschwitz-Birkenau. Without food or water the entire trip, Eva and her family were stuffed in a cattle-car with the other Jews of the area. After being let off the at Auschwitz, chaos immediately erupted. Her father and two older sisters were lost in the chaos. Eva and Miriam clung to their mother. A guard began shouting, "twins! twins!". Eva and Miriam were dressed alike, and the guard immediately suspected they were twins. In an instant, the little girls were ripped from their mothers arms. Within thirty minutes, Eva and Miriam had lost their entire family.

Josef Mengele

Eva was determined to give the Nazis as much trouble as a ten year-old could give. It required four SS guards to hold her down as they tattooed A-7063 on her arm. She hysterically screamed for her mother. Although the guards told her she could see her mother soon, Eva knew they were lying and continued to scream louder.

The two girls were taken to Josef Mengele's lab for various experiments. Known as the Angel of Death, Mengele ran all of the selections at Auschwitz and performed bizarre experiments on the inmates to achieve the perfect "Aryan" race - blond, blue-eyed perfect Germans. Mengele was particularly interested in twins and wanted to find the secret of "twinning". Obviously, twins would build the German Master-race faster. Many, many people died brutally from Mengele's experiments.
Eva's first night in Auschwitz was grotesque and horrible. Firstly, a rat was in their barrack. Eva and Miriam were both horrified. Secondly and most horribly, there were the naked corpses of three little children on the dirty barrack latrine. Eva quickly realized this could happen to them, and something happened to her. She promised herself that she would not let Miriam or herself die.

Three times a week, the doctors injected various chemicals in the twins. They would often take blood from one arm, while simultaneously giving shots in the other. After one certain experiment, Eva became deathly ill and had a high fever. The next morning, Mengele told her had only two weeks to live. Eva knew if she died, Mengele would kill Miriam. Eva refused to die. For two weeks, Eva was in and out of consciousness - often faded in and out of unconsciousness on the way to the water faucet on the other side of the barrack. However, Eva fought back bravely, and survived.
On January 27, 1945, after nine months in Auschwitz, the Red Army (Soviet Union) liberated the camp. The Soviets found about 200 children in Auschwitz at liberation, nearly all were from Mengele's experiments.

Liberation, Eva and Miriam are in front

Over a course of nine months, Eva and Miriam were in three different refugee camps. In 1950, the two immigrated to Israel. Over the next ten years in Israel, Eva became a sergeant major in the Israeli Army. It was in Israel where Eva met Holocaust survivor and Michael Kor. Michael and Eva were married in 1960 in Tel Aviv.

Eva and Miriam, 1949

On the 40th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, six Mengele twins visited Auschwitz and then went to a mock trial for Mengele in Jerusalem. The mock trial, with 80 twins participating, gained worldwide publicity and even more Mengele twins came forward.

Shortly after Miriam's death in 1993, Eva was asked by a professor to speak before a group of doctors. She agreed, but the professor asked her if she would bring a Nazi doctor with her. Eva's reply was, "Where do you think I can find a Nazi doctor? Last time I looked in the Yellow pages, they weren't advertising there."
But she did find a Nazi doctor, Hans Münch. Münch worked alongside Mengele in Auschwitz. Unlike most of the Nazi doctors, Münch was known for being humane to the inmates. He was the only one acquitted at the Auschwitz trials. Eva returned to Auschwitz with Hans Münch. Münch signed a documentation of the operation of the gas chambers. In 1995 Eva signed a declaration of amnesty and forgave everybody - most importantly Doctor Mengele. Many Holocaust survivors disagree with her for multiple reasons, but Eva describes forgiveness as self-healing - she did it more for herself than for the Nazis.

front: Michael Kor, Eva Kor,
back: Alex Kor, Rina Kor

What happened to Dr. Mengele, you may ask? When the Soviets overtook Auschwitz, he burned most of his research papers, packed the rest of his experiments and papers in a briefcase, and fled to Argentina. He became an (illegal) abortionist in Argentina, and was shortly tried after a woman died from one of the abortions. After Adolf Eichmann was caught, tried, and hung in the 1960s, Mengele panicked and fled to Paraguay. On a raft in Brazil, he had a heart attack and drowned. He died in February 1979, without facing justice for his crimes.

Today, Eva Kor lives in Terre Haute, Indiana. She has two children, Alex and Rina. She founded a museum called CANDLES: Children of Auschwitz Nazi Deadly Lab Experiments Survivors. She speaks all around the world to young people about the Holocaust. She has written two memoirs, one for middle schoolers and up and another for adults. The one for younger readers is called Surviving the Angel of Death. You can get a free full teachers guide here. The one for older readers is called Echoes of Auschwitz. In her documentary Forgiving Dr. Mengele, she describes her life and other Mengele twins' reactions to her forgiveness. To hear her story, here is a 30-minute documentary where Eva tells her story. She has truly dedicated her life to teaching the importance of forgiveness, self-healing, and tolerance.

I am blessed to have met Eva Kor in person; on April 16, 2013. You can read about my experience here. The experience, albeit brief, was unforgettable. She even signed her memoir Echoes of Auschwitz for me.

Eva has five life lessons she believes in. In her own words, they are:

1. Never, EVER give up.

2. Prevent prejudice by judging people only on their actions and content of their character.

3. Forgive your worst enemy - it will heal your soul and set you free.

4. Give your parents an extra hug and kiss for us children who had or have no parents.

5. Each of us has an important part to play in repairing the world. May tikkun olam ("repairing the world" in Hebrew) begin with me!

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In memory of Eva Kor's family, the 1.2 million Jewish children murdered during the Holocaust, and the three million survivors of the Holocaust.

If you enjoyed this post, please comment and share this post! It means a lot. 

Thank you so much!

10 WWII Heroes: Sophie Scholl 6/10

Historical photos are not mine. They are used for educational purposes. I own all other photographs. You may use all of my photographs, as long as proper credit is given.

This is the sixth in a ten part series about the heroes of World War II. You can view the introduction and table of contents to this series here.

At the beginning of each story I will give a maturity rating from 1-5. 1 means the story is appropriate for younger ages, and 5 means it is appropriate for teens and up. This story is rated 3.

Hans Scholl, Sophie Scholl, Christopher Probst
Munich, 1942

Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal said, "For evil to flourish, the only thing required is for good men to do nothing." In an episode of Little House on the Prairie, Albert's father says, "If you don't speak up to people, bigots, then you're no better than they are. Worse, in fact. Because you know that its wrong and you allow them to think you feel the same things they do."

Sophie Scholl was born in 1921, the fourth of six children. Her family was Lutheran, and her father was vocally anti-Nazi. Despite her fathers protests, in the early 30s, Sophie willingly joined the Hitler Youth. She loved the games and excitement it brought, along with being with her friends. However, Sophie hated injustice. When the Nuremberg Laws came in 1935 and stripped the rights of all the Jews, Sophie was infuriated. She entered the University of Munich in 1942 where she studied biology and philosophy. That year, Sophie's father was imprisoned for making anti-Hitler comments.

In 1942, an anonymous essay entitled "The White Rose" floated around the University of Munich. Hans Scholl, medical student and brother of Sophie, read this anonymous anti-Nazi essay. Inspired by the audacity the author of the letter had, he began spreading the essay wherever they went - and thus, The White Rose was born. (It was known in German as Die Weiße Rose.) The original members were Hans Scholl, Willi Graf, and Christoph Probst. Originally, Hans tried to hide his involvement from Sophie but when Sophie found it, she joined. 

There were six leaflets published in total. Four leaflets were under the title "The White Rose" and two were under the title "Leaflets of the Resistance." The leaflets were made and distributed from 1942 to 1943. The anonymous leaflets urged the population to speak up. Leaflet 4 bluntly stated, "We will not be silent. We are your bad conscience. The White Rose will not leave you in peace." You can see more excerpts from The White Rose leaflets here.

On February 18, 1943, Hans and Sophie spread the sixth leaflet around the University of Munich as usual. Right before the class break, Sophie noticed a huge stack of pamphlets still in their suitcase. At the top floor, she grabbed a handful of leaflets and flung them over the balcony, just as students were about to fill the atrium. A university janitor had seen them, and immediately turned them in.

Hans, Sophie, and Christoph Probst were arrested, tried, and sentenced to death. Christoph's wife was in the hospital with their third child.

During the middle of the trial, both of Sophie's parents came. Her mother was upset. Her father was proud of his children and wanted to defend them, but neither was allowed to come in. Before being executed, Hans and Sophie were allowed to have one last visit with their parents.

The court could not understand how three Germans, raised in German families, German schools and Hitler Youth, could rebel. Sophie boldly replied, "Somebody, after all, had to make a start. What we wrote and said is also believed by many others. They just don't dare to express themselves as we did.”

memorial at University of Munich
Wikipedia, public domain

While in prison, the Scholl's were most notable for their courage; they refused to show fear. Sophie walked to her death unflinching. Hans' last words were "Long live freedom!" The execution date was February 22, 1943. Soon after the Scholl's death, The White Rose's sixth leaflet was smuggled to the Allies. The Allies copied millions and air-dropped the leaflets all over Germany.

The White Rose's legacy still stands - today nearly all of German knows who these heroes are. Streets and places are named after the Scholl's and The White Rose. Pamphlets surround the University of Munich in commemoration. (You can see pictures here.) In 2005, a German movie entitled Sophie Scholl: The Final Days depicts The White Rose. You can view this movie on YouTube here. (It is in German with English subtitles. It is not graphic.)

The White Rose has been featured in other documentaries, movies, and books.

Although this quote comes from an unknown source, it is quoted in a 2008 book as Sophie and has a very fruitful message. "The real damage is done by those millions who want to survive. The honest men who just want to be left in peace. Those who don’t want their little lives disturbed by anything bigger than themselves. Those with no sides and no causes. Those who won’t take measure of their own strength, for fear of antagonizing their own weakness. Those who don’t like to make waves—or enemies. Those for whom freedom, honour, truth, and principles are only literature."

Members of The White Rose

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In memory of Sophie Scholl, Hans Scholl, and the other members of the White Rose.

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