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White Rose

Page 12

by Kip Wilson


  the drawing on the wall

  in the room he shares with Werner—

  Adolf Hitler,

  the new leader of the German Reich.

  Every day

  Vati takes it down,

  rolls it up,

  and places it

  in a drawer.

  Vati doesn’t hide

  his low opinion of the Führer,

  calling him and his men wolves,

  deceivers,

  liars.

  But Hans

  wants to make his opinion heard.

  Open the drawer,

  pull it out,

  hang it up.

  LEAGUE OF GERMAN GIRLS

  After months and months

  of watching

  my siblings go

  off on merry adventures

  with friends

  flags

  sports

  I’m finally allowed

  to join the Bund Deutscher Mädel

  even though Vati

  doesn’t approve.

  I excel

  in the fresh air, leading

  my own group

  in my own way, making

  sure we all share

  our snacks equally,

  though there are some girls

  who grumble.

  Others protest

  when I turn in those who refuse

  to attend required meetings.

  But

  rules

  are

  rules.

  HANS AND VATI

  Hans’s daily arguments with Vati

  have grown worse.

  Hans defends our Führer proudly,

  pointing at his promises

  to end unemployment,

  to build the Autobahn,

  to put this great nation

  to work.

  Vati counters that these aims

  will come at a price,

  and that price

  will be war.

  I don’t know

  who will win.

  CONFIRMATION

  Mutti wants

  to see me confirmed,

  and I go to the church

  wearing

  my brown uniform

  of the Bund Deutscher Mädel

  instead of a scratchy black dress.

  Filled with pride

  in my uniform before

  God, I raise

  my eyes to the church’s ceiling,

  the heavens,

  the greatness beyond.

  MY JEWISH FRIENDS

  I don’t understand

  why my friend Luise can’t

  join the BDM

  when she has blond hair, blue eyes—

  so decidedly Aryan—and I have

  brown hair, brown eyes

  (just like Herr Hitler).

  I stand up

  for the rights of my

  Jewish classmates

  to do as they wish,

  though it seems they’d rather

  I didn’t.

  THE END

  FEBRUARY 22, 1943

  Goodbye

  They tell me I have

  visitors—my parents—and I can’t

  get down the hall to

  them quickly enough.

  On my way to the door, Hans is led

  out, his eyes glittering

  like shiny stones.

  Will I ever see him again?

  I enter the visiting room, Vati pulls

  me into his arms, tells

  me what I want to hear.

  You will go down in history.

  This has to make waves,

  I say, animated

  by the weight of what we’ve done.

  Mutti offers

  me cookies, a reminder

  of home, telling

  me Hans didn’t want any.

  We haven’t eaten.

  Equal shares of courage and

  matter-of-factness fill

  my voice as I accept the sweets.

  Because I am

  courageous and

  matter-of-fact

  about what I hope

  will happen now:

  That the world will see

  and the world will know

  and the world

  will

  make

  them

  stop.

  A PRAYER

  I give

  my parents

  one last embrace, breathing

  in the comfort they’ve given

  me over all my years.

  Mutti releases me,

  tears in her eyes as she says,

  Remember, Sophie: Jesus,

  and I know she wishes

  me salvation.

  But I also know

  my suffering will be

  quick while hers

  will be

  long, so I hold

  back my own

  tears and tell her,

  You too.

  HOME

  Out in the corridor,

  the tears I’ve been holding

  back stream

  down my cheeks as I picture

  my family’s dining table at

  home in Ulm with

  two chairs that will remain

  empty

  forever.

  Herr Mohr passes by, pales

  at my tears, but so he doesn’t think

  I’m crying over

  my own fate, I wipe

  my cheeks, raise

  my chin, tell him,

  My parents.

  LAST LETTER

  Back in my cell,

  a guard nods, thrusts

  paper and pen at me, says,

  Your last chance to say

  goodbye to anyone else

  is now.

  I begin

  Lieber Fritz

  but can’t find the words I seek

  other than to tell

  him how

  proud

  I am of what we’ve done

  how

  insistent

  I am that I wouldn’t

  change

  a thing.

  A GIFT

  A happy surprise

  when the door creaks

  open once more: the

  guard again, this time ushering

  in the best possible gift:

  Hans

  and

  Christoph.

  The three of us rush

  to embrace,

  gasp, cling

  to one another,

  to our beliefs,

  well

  worth

  this

  sacrifice.

  You’ve only got

  a few minutes.

  The guard lights

  us a cigarette, closes

  the door.

  We breathe

  the heavy air, drawing

  the last life

  deep into our lungs.

  TOGETHER

  Hazy plumes of smoke from

  the already extinguished cigarette drift

  up to the corners of the cell, hanging

  there like forgotten cobwebs.

  Footsteps, and the

  guard announces

  my name

  from the hallway.

  Sophie Scholl.

  It’s then I realize

  I need only survive

  these

  last

  moments.

  EXECUTION

  The door opens

  one last time, revealing

  the executioner, dressed

  like an undertaker

  in a top hat and tails.

  Hans and Christoph and I take

  one another in one last time,

  proud

  strong

  brave,

  and I know

  dying will be so easy.

  I leave them behind, follow wordlessly

  across the courtya
rd

  to

  the

  blade.

  Outside, I force

  myself to forget, marveling

  instead at the promise of

  hope in the fresh February air and

  a bird singing in a tree

  beyond the wall, defying

  winter’s last chill and

  the ugliness before me.

  The execution room door yawns open then,

  a dark, hungry mouth closing

  in on me, surrounding

  me with wood and metal and

  the stench of death.

  On the plank, I count

  each breath in my mind—

  eins, zwei, drei—

  until the last one floats

  out of my lungs, dispersing

  through the room,

  and I’m flying.

  EPILOGUE

  1932

  My Brother

  We’re out

  of school for

  the summer and

  Hans bursts down the hall,

  fishing rod and tackle in hand, calling

  Freedom!

  SOARING SKYWARD

  Another lazy day lounging

  beside the Iller with Werner,

  swimming

  drawing

  reading

  but something makes

  me look skyward

  and a lonely falcon soars

  high

  higher

  highest

  tipping its wings, reaching

  for the heavens.

  Majestic bird!

  I can only hope

  to one day become

  such an inspiration.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  This story doesn’t have a happy ending. Possibly the most tragic aspect of the White Rose group is that the executions of its members didn’t “make waves” as Sophie had expected and so badly hoped. After the trial and execution of Sophie, Hans, and Christoph on February 22, 1943, the university community—like the rest of Germany—continued to cower under Hitler’s regime. There was no revolt.

  Instead, other friends were arrested for activities or association with the group. A second trial was held on April 19, 1943, resulting in prison sentences for Gisela Schertling, Traute Lafrenz, Hans Hirzel, and others, as well as death sentences for Alexander Schmorell, Willi Graf, and Kurt Huber. Alexander and Professor Huber were executed on July 13, 1943, and Willi on October 12, 1943.

  The defeat of the German army at Stalingrad was the turning point of the war, but more than two long years of fighting and countless deaths still remained. Resistance within Germany might have brought about a swifter end to the war, but most people were simply too afraid for their own lives to act, especially after trials and executions like those of the White Rose members. The stakes were clear: resist, and you will be imprisoned or killed.

  MY FIRST GLIMPSE

  When I first heard about the White Rose in high school German class, I knew I wanted to learn more about its members. Sophie was the youngest and the only girl, and her courage made her a personal heroine and role model for me throughout the rest of my teen years. The more I studied the group, the more her tragically short life compelled me to tell her story. Seeing Sophie’s letters and artwork in the Scholl archive at the Institute for Contemporary History on a trip to Munich and Ulm in 2005 brought her from my history books to life. She was truly a gifted artist. But I wanted to feel more than I could from books or archives. Trying to get inside Sophie’s head that fateful day, I retraced her steps from the flat she shared with Hans on Franz-Josef-Strasse to the university, where I passed through the atrium, imagining Sophie and Hans placing stacks of leaflets outside the lecture hall doors, and headed up to the third-floor balustrade, where she stood and gave the leaflets a push. Finally, I visited Sophie’s grave in the Perlacher Forest next to Stadelheim Prison, where she, Hans, and the others were laid to rest.

  I began to work in earnest on the project just after this trip, focusing on the story as nonfiction, but set the project aside, unable to find the right format. Only ten years later, when I finally began the story in verse, did everything click into place.

  FACT AND FICTION

  In telling Sophie’s story, I tried to stay as true to the known facts as possible, using details from my research in poetic interpretations of the material. Among the sources I studied were collections of letters to and from Hans, Sophie, and Fritz, the leaflets themselves, interrogation and trial paperwork, biographies of Sophie, books about the group, and published interviews with surviving family members and friends. These sources revealed not only facts about the group’s resistance activities but also the personality, emotions, and convictions that helped me give Sophie her voice.

  Most of the liberties I took with the story sprang from conflicting information across sources, a lack of details in any source, or a need to omit information Sophie wouldn’t have known. These include details about Hans’s sexuality, drug use by group members, Sophie’s specific thoughts about the Holocaust, her initial involvement in the leaflet operation, and the final moments of the group before execution.

  As always with historical research about deceased individuals, we don’t know what the subject might have thought or said in private, particularly in a case like this, in which she had to make every effort to keep details of her work and her life a secret. Even close family and friends reported that they didn’t know about Sophie’s resistance activities. Combining the documented actions with the thoughts and feelings she did share, I tried to paint a full picture of her role in the resistance efforts, together with her character as a very real person.

  LEGACY

  Though Germans failed to stand up and revolt following the executions, one pair of students did continue the work of the White Rose. Hans Leipelt and his girlfriend, Marie-Luise Jahn, received a copy of the sixth leaflet, and after the executions on February 22, they added the line und ihr Geist lebt trotzdem weiter, “and their spirit lives on,” to the top of the leaflet. They made copies and distributed them in Munich and Hamburg, resulting in their arrests in October 1943. At their trial a year later, Hans was sentenced to death and Marie-Luise to twelve years in prison. Hans was executed on January 29, 1945.

  Smuggled leaflets also made it to the Allies, and more than five million copies were reprinted and dropped by aircraft over German cities. After the war, Inge’s book Die Weiße Rose brought recognition to the group’s actions, and countless other books and two successful films followed. Today there is a monument at the University of Munich honoring their resistance, and many streets and schools in Germany are named after White Rose members.

  As Nobel Prize–winning author Thomas Mann said of Sophie and the rest of the group in a radio broadcast on June 27, 1943, “Good, splendid young people! You shall not have died in vain; you shall not be forgotten.”

  I truly hope I have given Sophie and the White Rose justice.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  The publication journey of a debut author is often a long and bumpy road, littered with shelved manuscripts, crumpled dreams, and broken bits of heart. To make it, we authors cling to what heart remains, soldier on, and firmly grip the hands of those who accompany us. So many people have helped me, both on my long writerly journey and on this particular book, and I hope beyond hope that I don’t forget anyone here, because I couldn’t have done it without all the support.

  Immense thanks to Kwame Alexander and Margaret Raymo—as Kwame says, “You only need one yes,” and I’m so very grateful that my yes came from the two of you, especially because Margaret’s whip-smart vision was just what this book needed. Being part of the fantastic Versify lineup is a dream come true. Thank you also to the entire HMH and Versify team who helped turn this story into a real book, including Erika Turner, Margaret Wimberger, Mary Magrisso, and David Curtis and Sharismar Rodriguez for illustrating and designing the beautiful cover. An extra-sparkly special thanks to my magical agent,
Roseanne Wells, for helping take my work to the next level, for supporting me every step of the way, and for believing in me even when I took a radical turn away from all the prose I’d written and began writing in verse, where I found my true calling.

  I’ll forever be indebted to the PEN/New England committee for choosing White Rose as a Discovery Award winner in 2017, as well as the Pitch Wars community for welcoming me into the fold, first as a mentee in 2014 and then as a mentor in 2016 and 2017. Thanks to Brenda Drake for all you do, Sarah Guillory for being my favorite dementor, and the 2014 Pitch Wars class for being the absolute best. Thank you to my writing instructors over the years, including Padma Venkatraman, Alma Fullerton, Kathy Erskine, Holly Thompson, Carolyn Yoder, and Melanie Crowder; and danke to my high school German teacher, Frau Kellogg, and my Doktorvater, Professor Strelka, for all you taught me. Vielen Dank to the staff at the DenkStätte Weiße Rose and the Institut für Zeitgeschichte, and to all the authors whose books about the White Rose included in-depth research and interviews, many of those with surviving friends and family members. Special thanks to Barbara Leisner and Sönke Zankel for answering some specific questions.

  To my critique partners and beta readers: thank you, thank you, thank you. To my original critique group, Joan Paquette, Julie Phillipps, and Natalie Lorenzi, and my longtime beta readers, Michelle Mason, Beth Smith, Shari Green, and JRo Brown—love you guys! To my White Rose readers, Kathy Quimby, Joy McCullough, Alexandra Alessandri, Marley Teter, Kerri Maher, Kristin Reynolds, Amanda Rawson Hill, Mara Rutherford, Sam Taylor, Carrie Callaghan, and Ann Braden—huge bucketloads of appreciation. To my sensitivity readers, Stephanie Cohen-Perez and a second reader who chose to remain anonymous—your insight was ridiculously helpful. Thank you. A huge shout-out to #5amwritersclub, where I do all my best work, to Rachel Simon for running the Boston crêpes group, and to the #novel19s for sharing this incredible year. And of course, to Monica Ropal, who reads everything I send, talks me off ledges, and pushes me to do better—don’t ever leave me!

 

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