Returning to our roots

     In July 1994 when I first learned of the White Rose, my only interest at the time was to write a creative nonfiction novel targeting high school and college students. And after that, to move on to another interesting topic. I was actually more interested in writing creative nonfiction (also known as literary nonfiction) novels than in German resistance during the Shoah.
     And indeed, the first several drafts of my work - all the way through 1997 - were creative nonfiction novels.
     It was only when publishers kept telling me 1) that White Rose had been sufficiently covered by Richard Hanser; and 2) that my story was too different and therefore too unbelievable - only after hearing these two things over and over did I decide to nail down the White Rose story once and for all. With cold, hard facts.

Chapter One: Roses at Noon (the creative nonfiction novel about the White Rose)

CHAPTER ONE
May 1, 1942
     It is so cold today. Cold and snowing. I wonder if I am making the biggest mistake of my life. Yesterday I footed numbers in Daddy’s office, checked his arithmetic to keep his clients happy. He had the heat turned up. Even Inge laughed now and then.
     But today, today. The signs flashed by, Mering, Nannhofen. I told myself over and over, Sophie, you have waited two years to be in Munich with Hans. With Hans!     I will admit it out loud. It was great fun seeing him waving to me from the platform. His arm around Traute, that casual romance that gives him the very breath he breathes. She looked the picture of elegance, every hair in place, her shoes matching the skirt she wore. I really should not like her, you know. But there is something so un-Nazi about her, we are at once kindred spirits.