It's February 22, sixty-nine years after Christoph Probst, Hans Scholl, and Sophie Scholl were convicted of treason in Germany's Volksgericht and promptly beheaded. While much about that day has been fairy-taled beyond recognition, one element of the legend has basis in fact.
Namely, as Hans Scholl was being led to his death, he shouted Long live freedom!
Now, he did not shout it loudly enough for the whole prison to hear. And he did not shout it after sharing a cigarette with Christl and Sophie. And he did not shout it after shedding a tear for an unnamed 'girlfriend' of any sort.
But his final words - appropriately enough - reminded the executioner, prison chaplain, and witnesses to his death that the friends of the White Rose were giving their lives for the notion that "freedom of the individual" was worth fighting for. Three leaflets had specifically mentioned their obsession with this personal freedom that had been taken from them by Hitler and his regime.
Showing posts with label Willi Graf. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Willi Graf. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
Friday, August 28, 2009
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.
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.
Saturday, June 27, 2009
Just the Facts, Ma'am
I'm one of the lucky few who has been taught by excellent teachers from the very beginning. No other component of education ranks as high as the women and men who, underpaid and undersupplied, stand in front of classrooms day after day. Somehow, each year I managed to be assigned to yet another person who would have been honored as Teacher of the Year, were life completely fair.
Except for my third grade teacher. Poor thing, she had to take over our class barely six weeks into the new school year, assuming the wooden desk of one of those venerated educators. And she was no Mrs. T. She did not understand how to challenge us, motivate us to think out loud, like Mrs. T did. She mistook mischief for badness, sass for impudence.
The new person did not take us outside to explore wildflowers, or sit us down in small groups to work on assignments. Instead, she hung bad handwriting samples on the bulletin board to encourage classmates to mock poor cursive. And my Ps and Qs always, but always, took front and center of her disdain.
Whether naturally lazy or just ill-equipped, this woman could not teach. Yet I took two things away from her class that I do indeed remember to this day. First, she demonstrated the power of reading aloud. When she ran out of things to say, she would pick up a book, say Charlotte's Web, perch on a stool, and read to us for the rest of the day. I still enjoy hearing words spoken, words crafted to sit on a white page, but spoken instead. It's magic, that rhythm. No mistake that mysticism often invokes chants uttered, not sung.
And her second gift to me? Something she never intended as such. When she got angry, she would mete out fact-writing as punishment. The greater the offense, the more facts you had to write down. It didn't matter what, as long that Big Chief tablet contained nice neat lists. Of facts.
She didn't realize that whenever I pulled an encyclopedia off the shelf, or went down the hall to the library, I was in heaven. There is so much to know. And the more you learn, the more you know, the bigger you realize this old world is. That hunger is hardly satisfied by feeding on the fruit of knowledge. You go from writing "Texas is the very best state in the United States" (an acceptable third grade fact in Houston), to comprehending how it gained independence, to its flora and fauna, to the surrounding states, to Valley Forge. And before you know it, you wind up studying overseas, still fascinated by the people and cultures and trees and all that make this planet ours.
And before you know it, you wind up searching for the truth about a group of college kids who were beheaded for daring to speak the truth about Hitler.
The usual dust cover summary of the White Rose will tell you that they were a group of friends at the University of Munich, who committed to resist Hitler and began to do so by writing leaflets calling for the overthrow of the regime. That on February 18, 1943, two of them (Hans and Sophie Scholl) threw leaflets over the balcony of the main university building that housed the lecture halls and classrooms for philosophy and the humanities. That the janitor saw them and had them arrested. That they, along with Christoph Probst, were tried and beheaded on February 22, 1943. That fourteen others were tried on April 19, and four more on July 13. In all, six were murdered, and eleven served prison sentences.
The dust jacket version of their story leads the casual reader to believe that these wonderful young students were near saints. One extant edition of letters highlights innocent love affairs, sexless liaisons without even a breath of a kiss. They are ascribed purity of heart, purity of mind, and above all, purity of soul. Their all too real spiritual struggles jump off the page and dominate the telling.
But this pretty terrible third grade teacher inadvertently taught me to chase rabbits. You never know. You can end up in Wonderland with Alice, at tea with Bugs, or pursuing the science of burrowing animals. Chasing rabbits will at least get you off dead center.
I learned for starters that the literature about them is all wrong. Yes, there are bits and pieces of it that ring true, but not nearly enough. These wonderful young students were that same mix of good and bad that you and I are. When they fell in love, it was with hormones raging, riddled with angst and guilt and desire. Pure passion.
They fought our battles too. Christoph's demon was his clinical depression, knowing that his father had died of the same disease, by his own hand. He found solace in a solid woman, whom he finally married after the birth of their second child. His family hobnobbed with the premiere banned artists. Emil Nolde painted a portrait of Christoph and his sister.
Willi Graf decided very young to distance himself from Hitler's hordes. He marked through names of friends who joined Hitler Youth, leaving his address book a stark reminder of how few were courageous. When Willi was 15, he and 11 friends marched alone in a throng of several hundred thousand Hitler Youth boys, their lack of proper attire and proper flag a thumb in the eye of the city fathers. Assigned to a medical unit on the Russian front, he witnessed unbelievable bestiality by his "comrades". His nightmares ended only with his execution.
These kids coped with drug addiction, sexual addiction, and stupid jealousies. They wrote love letters, sketched scenes from their hometowns, and went skiing over New Year's. Sophie loved the Variety Club, Hubert started a string quartet, Alex sculpted a bust of Beethoven. Several excelled at fencing, one was allegedly a petty thief, a couple played piano, and they all devoured every banned book they could find.
They had their mentors too. Carl Muth, friend of Hans Jonas, instructed them how to find answers to theological questions on their own. Wilhelm Geyer (whom Julius Streicher named the most dangerous artist in Germany) taught Sophie how to paint and Alex how to make stencils. Eugen Grimminger funded their efforts with roughly the equivalent of $50,000 in real money. And a regular army guy, Commander Buehl, managed to outwit the Gestapo and protected several who were in his Student Company.
Some had Jewish family members. Christoph's beloved stepmother Lisl was Jewish, as was Eugen Grimminger's wife Jenny. Most had neighbors they had seen destroyed, financially or physically. They differed from their classmates by perceiving the Nazi noose as an outrage that needed righting, as illegal acts against human beings. And the ones who saw Warsaw? Well, no words can describe the fury that possessed them from that day on.
They didn't come close to overthrowing Hitler. They painted anti-Nazi slogans up and down the main streets of Munich, "seventy times," the Gestapo screamed. Though the tar-based paint kept their graffiti visible long after their deaths, no one rushed out to topple the regime just because they proclaimed that Hitler was a mass murderer. And while a few were sorry that such a pretty young girl had to die, most people expressed the sentiments that someone overheard in class, words that only deepened his anguished sorrow. "They should have strung 'em up in front of the university," two students opined.
So why tell their story, when all they did was for nothing? Why do I fight this battle to get the real story out there, when people seem happier with the feel-good version?
The answer is the same to both questions. They did not die for nothing. Sophie's boyfriend back-tracked on his original plans to raise chickens. Instead, he became one of Germany's most respected, ethical judges. Often Fritz Hartnagel represented the sole voice of justice in a court where too many Nazis were not disbarred. He is gravely ill, and I offer a prayer, a mi sh'berach for his health.
Traute Lafrenz came to the States and has worked hard to make our world safer, healthier, more compassionate. Anneliese Graf took to heart her brother's admonition to keep the torch lit. She has worked tirelessly in the field of education.
These people have in turn inspired others. And all of us recognize our limits, our shortcomings, our very humanness. There is something at once bracing and comforting in knowing that no matter how often we fail, we are capable of such great good.
Even you. Even me.
(c) 2001 Ruth Sachs. All rights reserved.
Except for my third grade teacher. Poor thing, she had to take over our class barely six weeks into the new school year, assuming the wooden desk of one of those venerated educators. And she was no Mrs. T. She did not understand how to challenge us, motivate us to think out loud, like Mrs. T did. She mistook mischief for badness, sass for impudence.
The new person did not take us outside to explore wildflowers, or sit us down in small groups to work on assignments. Instead, she hung bad handwriting samples on the bulletin board to encourage classmates to mock poor cursive. And my Ps and Qs always, but always, took front and center of her disdain.
Whether naturally lazy or just ill-equipped, this woman could not teach. Yet I took two things away from her class that I do indeed remember to this day. First, she demonstrated the power of reading aloud. When she ran out of things to say, she would pick up a book, say Charlotte's Web, perch on a stool, and read to us for the rest of the day. I still enjoy hearing words spoken, words crafted to sit on a white page, but spoken instead. It's magic, that rhythm. No mistake that mysticism often invokes chants uttered, not sung.
And her second gift to me? Something she never intended as such. When she got angry, she would mete out fact-writing as punishment. The greater the offense, the more facts you had to write down. It didn't matter what, as long that Big Chief tablet contained nice neat lists. Of facts.
She didn't realize that whenever I pulled an encyclopedia off the shelf, or went down the hall to the library, I was in heaven. There is so much to know. And the more you learn, the more you know, the bigger you realize this old world is. That hunger is hardly satisfied by feeding on the fruit of knowledge. You go from writing "Texas is the very best state in the United States" (an acceptable third grade fact in Houston), to comprehending how it gained independence, to its flora and fauna, to the surrounding states, to Valley Forge. And before you know it, you wind up studying overseas, still fascinated by the people and cultures and trees and all that make this planet ours.
And before you know it, you wind up searching for the truth about a group of college kids who were beheaded for daring to speak the truth about Hitler.
The usual dust cover summary of the White Rose will tell you that they were a group of friends at the University of Munich, who committed to resist Hitler and began to do so by writing leaflets calling for the overthrow of the regime. That on February 18, 1943, two of them (Hans and Sophie Scholl) threw leaflets over the balcony of the main university building that housed the lecture halls and classrooms for philosophy and the humanities. That the janitor saw them and had them arrested. That they, along with Christoph Probst, were tried and beheaded on February 22, 1943. That fourteen others were tried on April 19, and four more on July 13. In all, six were murdered, and eleven served prison sentences.
The dust jacket version of their story leads the casual reader to believe that these wonderful young students were near saints. One extant edition of letters highlights innocent love affairs, sexless liaisons without even a breath of a kiss. They are ascribed purity of heart, purity of mind, and above all, purity of soul. Their all too real spiritual struggles jump off the page and dominate the telling.
But this pretty terrible third grade teacher inadvertently taught me to chase rabbits. You never know. You can end up in Wonderland with Alice, at tea with Bugs, or pursuing the science of burrowing animals. Chasing rabbits will at least get you off dead center.
I learned for starters that the literature about them is all wrong. Yes, there are bits and pieces of it that ring true, but not nearly enough. These wonderful young students were that same mix of good and bad that you and I are. When they fell in love, it was with hormones raging, riddled with angst and guilt and desire. Pure passion.
They fought our battles too. Christoph's demon was his clinical depression, knowing that his father had died of the same disease, by his own hand. He found solace in a solid woman, whom he finally married after the birth of their second child. His family hobnobbed with the premiere banned artists. Emil Nolde painted a portrait of Christoph and his sister.
Willi Graf decided very young to distance himself from Hitler's hordes. He marked through names of friends who joined Hitler Youth, leaving his address book a stark reminder of how few were courageous. When Willi was 15, he and 11 friends marched alone in a throng of several hundred thousand Hitler Youth boys, their lack of proper attire and proper flag a thumb in the eye of the city fathers. Assigned to a medical unit on the Russian front, he witnessed unbelievable bestiality by his "comrades". His nightmares ended only with his execution.
These kids coped with drug addiction, sexual addiction, and stupid jealousies. They wrote love letters, sketched scenes from their hometowns, and went skiing over New Year's. Sophie loved the Variety Club, Hubert started a string quartet, Alex sculpted a bust of Beethoven. Several excelled at fencing, one was allegedly a petty thief, a couple played piano, and they all devoured every banned book they could find.
They had their mentors too. Carl Muth, friend of Hans Jonas, instructed them how to find answers to theological questions on their own. Wilhelm Geyer (whom Julius Streicher named the most dangerous artist in Germany) taught Sophie how to paint and Alex how to make stencils. Eugen Grimminger funded their efforts with roughly the equivalent of $50,000 in real money. And a regular army guy, Commander Buehl, managed to outwit the Gestapo and protected several who were in his Student Company.
Some had Jewish family members. Christoph's beloved stepmother Lisl was Jewish, as was Eugen Grimminger's wife Jenny. Most had neighbors they had seen destroyed, financially or physically. They differed from their classmates by perceiving the Nazi noose as an outrage that needed righting, as illegal acts against human beings. And the ones who saw Warsaw? Well, no words can describe the fury that possessed them from that day on.
They didn't come close to overthrowing Hitler. They painted anti-Nazi slogans up and down the main streets of Munich, "seventy times," the Gestapo screamed. Though the tar-based paint kept their graffiti visible long after their deaths, no one rushed out to topple the regime just because they proclaimed that Hitler was a mass murderer. And while a few were sorry that such a pretty young girl had to die, most people expressed the sentiments that someone overheard in class, words that only deepened his anguished sorrow. "They should have strung 'em up in front of the university," two students opined.
So why tell their story, when all they did was for nothing? Why do I fight this battle to get the real story out there, when people seem happier with the feel-good version?
The answer is the same to both questions. They did not die for nothing. Sophie's boyfriend back-tracked on his original plans to raise chickens. Instead, he became one of Germany's most respected, ethical judges. Often Fritz Hartnagel represented the sole voice of justice in a court where too many Nazis were not disbarred. He is gravely ill, and I offer a prayer, a mi sh'berach for his health.
Traute Lafrenz came to the States and has worked hard to make our world safer, healthier, more compassionate. Anneliese Graf took to heart her brother's admonition to keep the torch lit. She has worked tirelessly in the field of education.
These people have in turn inspired others. And all of us recognize our limits, our shortcomings, our very humanness. There is something at once bracing and comforting in knowing that no matter how often we fail, we are capable of such great good.
Even you. Even me.
(c) 2001 Ruth Sachs. All rights reserved.
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Papal Fallibility
On April 19, 2005, I sat at table with professors and friends-of-professors after speaking at the Holocaust Lecture Series sponsored by Sonoma State University. I was still on an adrenaline high. The "lecture" had gone well, the students had asked really intelligent questions, I had gotten to meet Edith Stein's still-Jewish niece. And the people gathered at the Holocaust Lecture Series' Stammtisch at a Chinese restaurant were the best of the best. Conversation was that delicious combo platter of lighthearted and serious.
There was even an African-American woman who had grown up near Houston. Like me, she had left Texas as things became less and less pleasant. We commiserated over the loss of a truly great place to live, a place where integration was voluntary, where we knew and loved politicians like LBJ, Lloyd Bentsen, and Sissy Farenthold. We wondered what had happened, how Texas had become the land of hate crimes, a place where the state GOP declared that the United States was a Christian country, why schools that had been fully and voluntarily integrated in the 1960s were now places where the n-word is liberally used. The only liberal thing left in the state, except maybe Molly Ivins.
"Did you hear about the new pope?" her husband suddenly asked.
I had not, since part of my preparations for a lecture or conference include a pretty firm "no TV" rule the day of. Who? When?
My heart sank when he answered. It's not that I don't think German clerics should be pope. I just don't think this one has any business being involved in setting policy, procedure, doctrine, traditions, practice, or anything else within the Catholic church. Much less being installed as pope.
His whitewash of his days under Hitler not only represent severe distortion of the truth, but in cleaning up his own act, he dishonors the many Germans who did in fact stand up for justice and freedom. His claim that he joined Hitler Youth because he had to? Please.
To be sure, young boys (and girls) were under tremendous pressure to join that organization. And after a while, non-Hitler Youth clubs except for Catholic clubs organized for Bible study and prayer were outlawed. In fact, they were outlawed several times, and enforcement ranged from nonexistent to more severe crackdowns over time.
But here and there, boys and girls ~ mere children ~ did in fact have the backbone and courage of their convictions, and refused to join. Their refusal usually if not always brought them beatings. They were societal outcasts. My very first German teacher told us how she hated her father (who was part of the July 20, 1944 resistance), because he would not let her join BDM, the girls' version of Hitler Youth. As a non-member, she had no friends. Life was very, very hard indeed.
Among the White Rose members and those loosely affiliated with it, there are several brilliant examples of students who did not join Hitler Youth, and who paid dearly. Otl Aicher did not join, and because he was of small stature, he was the repeated target of HY bullies who often left him bloodied. But proud. His friend Lilli Holl did not join BDM at a time when Inge (and Hans and Sophie) Scholl tried to beef up membership through cruel and unusual measures. Lilli was beaten with a whip and attacked by a mob, and she did not join.
Nor did Willi Graf, whose father was a founding member of the NSDAP in the Saarland. Willi crossed out names of friends who did join HY and kept to those who would not back down. Heinrich Guter in Ulm applied for membership in Jungvolk (the younger boys' version of HY), but he was turned down because his attitudes were known to be too anti-Nazi. And Heinrich Guter ~ younger than most of the White Rose students by a good 8 - 10 years ~ was about the same age as this pope.
In reality, this pope was given an opportunity unlike any of his predecessors, bar none. His first (or second, or third) day in office, he could have said, Yes, I was part of the Third Reich, and I chose to be. But I repent of my actions and I solemnly pledge to do everything in my power to bring in unsurpassed openness, to bring about healing and restoration, to ensure that the Holocaust and my Church's role in it never happen again.
But he did not.
It's not too late. He can recant his earlier statements and start afresh. As I understand Catholic theology, papal infallibility applies solely to his rulings regarding church doctrine. He is not a deity, he is not a saint, he is not sinless. So he can indeed recant. If he chooses to.
To be effectual, such a recantation must be followed by an immediate opening of church archives, especially regarding documents pertaining to the Third Reich. It is shameful indeed when a religious organization (or any organization or individual, for that matter) claims innocence or purity in a specific matter, then refuses to grant access to documents that can prove or disprove those statements.
The new pope might want to start by reinstating the German texts of Mit brennender Sorge and the Christmas 1942 German speech ~ oft cited by sycophants of Pope Pius XII in faulty English translation ~ to the Vatican Web site. Both used to be there. Both are now gone. Because the original German made it clear that Pope Pius XII was most concerned with protecting church assets and Jews who had converted to Catholicism. To hell with everything and everyone else.
Sadly, this pope's refusal ~ along with his church's refusal in general ~ to address the church's incestuous relationship with Hitler and the NSDAP obfuscates the very real resistance that was carried out by many Catholic (and Lutheran) clerics. The ones like Pater Weiss in Ulm who taught their charges that Nazi hate was wrong? They are the ones who deserve beatification, who should be honored and revered among Catholics worldwide, indeed among all who cherish liberty and justice. Writers like Johannes Maassen who fruitlessly called his church to stop its whoring with the Nazis? His words should be studied in every parochial school and seminary.
But as long as church leaders pretend it didn't happen, pretend everyone did what was right, pretend that the pope then ~ and the pope now ~ had the courage everyone wishes they had had?
As long as that is the case, true heroes continue to go unrecognized, and young Germans, young Americans, young Catholics ~ young Jews ~ go on with nothing solid to hang their hats on. The problem of celebrity is hardly limited to sports. If religious leaders feast on celebrity and not real heroes, their disciples will die of starvation.
It's time that papal scholars faced the hard, cold truth. That is, if their religion is to have any meaning worth living for.
~ Ruth Hanna Sachs
July 28, 2005: Changed the name of this essay from "Papal Sycophancy" to "Papal Fallibility," since that better reflects its intent. I wish to stress, underline, and shout from the rooftops that this essay is not a diatribe against the Catholic church. (I would have reacted exactly the same way had the woman claimed that the Lutheran, Baptist, or Methodist churches had practiced resistance. The Holocaust was enabled by a colossal failure of organized "religion" to act.) It is, however, a call to more openness, more transparency, more honesty.
I would like to challenge the new Pope to be painfully candid about what he did during the Third Reich. Steps in that direction have been made without him, by (for example) the playwrights of Oberammergau who've taken extraordinary measures to rid the 300+ year-old Passion Play of its anti-Semitic overtones.
It's time for the Church to quit pretending that its leaders from 1933-1945 were saints. Honor those men and women of the church who did in fact die for the courage of their convictions.
Beatify them, the Franz Weisses and Johannes Maassens. Teach children about their heroism.
If that were to happen, can you imagine the wave of healing and peace that could sweep across the land?
~ RHS.
There was even an African-American woman who had grown up near Houston. Like me, she had left Texas as things became less and less pleasant. We commiserated over the loss of a truly great place to live, a place where integration was voluntary, where we knew and loved politicians like LBJ, Lloyd Bentsen, and Sissy Farenthold. We wondered what had happened, how Texas had become the land of hate crimes, a place where the state GOP declared that the United States was a Christian country, why schools that had been fully and voluntarily integrated in the 1960s were now places where the n-word is liberally used. The only liberal thing left in the state, except maybe Molly Ivins.
"Did you hear about the new pope?" her husband suddenly asked.
I had not, since part of my preparations for a lecture or conference include a pretty firm "no TV" rule the day of. Who? When?
My heart sank when he answered. It's not that I don't think German clerics should be pope. I just don't think this one has any business being involved in setting policy, procedure, doctrine, traditions, practice, or anything else within the Catholic church. Much less being installed as pope.
His whitewash of his days under Hitler not only represent severe distortion of the truth, but in cleaning up his own act, he dishonors the many Germans who did in fact stand up for justice and freedom. His claim that he joined Hitler Youth because he had to? Please.
To be sure, young boys (and girls) were under tremendous pressure to join that organization. And after a while, non-Hitler Youth clubs except for Catholic clubs organized for Bible study and prayer were outlawed. In fact, they were outlawed several times, and enforcement ranged from nonexistent to more severe crackdowns over time.
But here and there, boys and girls ~ mere children ~ did in fact have the backbone and courage of their convictions, and refused to join. Their refusal usually if not always brought them beatings. They were societal outcasts. My very first German teacher told us how she hated her father (who was part of the July 20, 1944 resistance), because he would not let her join BDM, the girls' version of Hitler Youth. As a non-member, she had no friends. Life was very, very hard indeed.
Among the White Rose members and those loosely affiliated with it, there are several brilliant examples of students who did not join Hitler Youth, and who paid dearly. Otl Aicher did not join, and because he was of small stature, he was the repeated target of HY bullies who often left him bloodied. But proud. His friend Lilli Holl did not join BDM at a time when Inge (and Hans and Sophie) Scholl tried to beef up membership through cruel and unusual measures. Lilli was beaten with a whip and attacked by a mob, and she did not join.
Nor did Willi Graf, whose father was a founding member of the NSDAP in the Saarland. Willi crossed out names of friends who did join HY and kept to those who would not back down. Heinrich Guter in Ulm applied for membership in Jungvolk (the younger boys' version of HY), but he was turned down because his attitudes were known to be too anti-Nazi. And Heinrich Guter ~ younger than most of the White Rose students by a good 8 - 10 years ~ was about the same age as this pope.
In reality, this pope was given an opportunity unlike any of his predecessors, bar none. His first (or second, or third) day in office, he could have said, Yes, I was part of the Third Reich, and I chose to be. But I repent of my actions and I solemnly pledge to do everything in my power to bring in unsurpassed openness, to bring about healing and restoration, to ensure that the Holocaust and my Church's role in it never happen again.
But he did not.
It's not too late. He can recant his earlier statements and start afresh. As I understand Catholic theology, papal infallibility applies solely to his rulings regarding church doctrine. He is not a deity, he is not a saint, he is not sinless. So he can indeed recant. If he chooses to.
To be effectual, such a recantation must be followed by an immediate opening of church archives, especially regarding documents pertaining to the Third Reich. It is shameful indeed when a religious organization (or any organization or individual, for that matter) claims innocence or purity in a specific matter, then refuses to grant access to documents that can prove or disprove those statements.
The new pope might want to start by reinstating the German texts of Mit brennender Sorge and the Christmas 1942 German speech ~ oft cited by sycophants of Pope Pius XII in faulty English translation ~ to the Vatican Web site. Both used to be there. Both are now gone. Because the original German made it clear that Pope Pius XII was most concerned with protecting church assets and Jews who had converted to Catholicism. To hell with everything and everyone else.
Sadly, this pope's refusal ~ along with his church's refusal in general ~ to address the church's incestuous relationship with Hitler and the NSDAP obfuscates the very real resistance that was carried out by many Catholic (and Lutheran) clerics. The ones like Pater Weiss in Ulm who taught their charges that Nazi hate was wrong? They are the ones who deserve beatification, who should be honored and revered among Catholics worldwide, indeed among all who cherish liberty and justice. Writers like Johannes Maassen who fruitlessly called his church to stop its whoring with the Nazis? His words should be studied in every parochial school and seminary.
But as long as church leaders pretend it didn't happen, pretend everyone did what was right, pretend that the pope then ~ and the pope now ~ had the courage everyone wishes they had had?
As long as that is the case, true heroes continue to go unrecognized, and young Germans, young Americans, young Catholics ~ young Jews ~ go on with nothing solid to hang their hats on. The problem of celebrity is hardly limited to sports. If religious leaders feast on celebrity and not real heroes, their disciples will die of starvation.
It's time that papal scholars faced the hard, cold truth. That is, if their religion is to have any meaning worth living for.
~ Ruth Hanna Sachs
July 28, 2005: Changed the name of this essay from "Papal Sycophancy" to "Papal Fallibility," since that better reflects its intent. I wish to stress, underline, and shout from the rooftops that this essay is not a diatribe against the Catholic church. (I would have reacted exactly the same way had the woman claimed that the Lutheran, Baptist, or Methodist churches had practiced resistance. The Holocaust was enabled by a colossal failure of organized "religion" to act.) It is, however, a call to more openness, more transparency, more honesty.
I would like to challenge the new Pope to be painfully candid about what he did during the Third Reich. Steps in that direction have been made without him, by (for example) the playwrights of Oberammergau who've taken extraordinary measures to rid the 300+ year-old Passion Play of its anti-Semitic overtones.
It's time for the Church to quit pretending that its leaders from 1933-1945 were saints. Honor those men and women of the church who did in fact die for the courage of their convictions.
Beatify them, the Franz Weisses and Johannes Maassens. Teach children about their heroism.
If that were to happen, can you imagine the wave of healing and peace that could sweep across the land?
~ RHS.
Thursday, June 18, 2009
History: Excerpted posts from 2001
Occasionally, and before the RuthSachs.com Web site disappears, I will copy old posts from my author's journal to this site. Here are some excerpts from early 2001:
March 29, 2001
Smiles enough, and laughter the last seven days. Putting aside White Rose has been like opening the windows on a gorgeous spring day, letting in the fresh air. Mark Twain has that effect on you. I've simply got to finish White Rose, so I can go back to Joanie and Sid.
Have practiced writing in different voices this week. Nothing publishable. In fact, I need to shred anything that made it to the printer. It is simply a delicious exercise, thinking out loud from another point of view.
I think sometimes we've got to back away from the things that normally consume our lives and stand in the sunshine a while. Clears out cobwebs hidden by the dark. This I will do!
March 22, 2001
Early this week, I found myself struggling. I would look at the Otl Aicher book that has very little left to translate, and think I could not bear to write another word. I finally got out some Mark Twain I had not read in years. In the ensuing laughter, I knew that every once in a while, when you deal with such a dark subject, you simply have to take a break and step completely away without feeling guilty.
So I have managed to do exactly that. Working on a few short, bright, airy pieces, nothing more than happy fluff. Nothing serious, or long.
Maybe in a week or two, I can return to that dark place that does hold such light, a little refreshed and ready to tackle it head-on.
March 15, 2001
Not a writing week! Stephen King may say that every writer should write ten pages a day, but odds are, he doesn't have to deal with car repairs and telephone people. Only one-and-a-half pages this week. For the whole week. Sometimes you just have to be thankful for what you do get done and quit obsessing over the work you wanted to do.
Oh well. At least the imminent trip to the garage turned into a new car instead. Fun shedding the staid, business-image automobile for something a little more me.
March 8, 2001
Varied week, lots of little things accomplished. Sometimes a break from the darkness of the Third Reich is very much in order.
Finished one article for Children's Writer, started another. Doing these makes me understand a little more here or there about the corners of writing that I am still discovering, the niches that are out there, still unexplored.
Also started translation work for hagalil.com, that excellent German Jewish Web site. Focusing first on contemporary German Jewish life, because so much Shoah material is already available in English. It's a breath of fresh air to write about today's struggles, joys, and perplexities, instead of always looking to the past for inspiration.
Looking to the "future" too, as a very strange and funny dream may have solved the way to get Joanie to talk again. Maybe I can write a chapter or two there next week, get her story moving. Need to look up something about Jupiter, so I can get the commentary right. I like the days I work on Joanie's Letters, because I find myself laughing as I write.
March 1, 2001
White Rose work this week has taken me well beyond the usual confines of thinking about them in terms of resistance to Hitler. Their words resound in our own politics.
I am wondering about collecting things I find here and there, bits of wisdom across the centuries, on the horror of war. How is it that our sages tell us always and again that war is hell, yet each generation goes out and has to learn that anew? Such somber, dark reflections this week, but it can not be any other way after translating Otl Aicher's eyewitness account of what he saw.
I'd like for us to start defining heroes a little better. Remove professional sports figures from the pedestal first, those who simulate war, taking the sport out of it. How can we write the word hero so it's understood as the people who make us more whole? This has been a week for questions.
February 22, 2001
Today is the 58th anniversary of the execution of Christoph, Hans, and Sophie. Guess it's appropriate that this week has been filled with nothing but White Rose.
Nearly done entering Otl Aicher's memoirs. He gives such a clear view of who Sophie was. "She had hair like I like hair. She had a body like I like bodies." He speaks so frankly, no masks trying to be politically correct. Researching him a little has been fun too. Wonder why no one ever picked up on the fact that he was in Munich that week to talk to them about working with the resistance? It's been there in black and white for so long.
Finley came out Tuesday. We looked at the CD-ROM software that Brian recommended. It's exactly right. Now the only question remains, how to sort through the piles in the conference room to choose only those things that other people besides me will be interested in?
February 15, 2001
Finally got Hans and Sophie, 1933-1942 in the database. (2,200 entries and more to come!)
Went through ups and downs doing this. Sophie's honesty is refreshing, especially when it follows a section of Hans that is purposely deceitful. Wish Scholl archives could be forced to let us read the letters he wrote "girls" besides Rose Naegele at the same time he was writing her. Actually, at this point, I would be happy to read un-edited versions of letters to Rose!
Letter from Dr. Schmorell. More details on his wife's father's role in protecting many of the ones who were in the army, and her memories... He wrote that he had been worried that I had abandoned the White Rose project. If only he knew how close I came to doing just that last year.
Bomb scare this week at Valley Forge Post Office. Is that #16?
Thinking about the Joanie Letters. Am I getting close to figuring out her relationship to Sid? If so, I can finally get past Chapter Four. Should Kirk disappear, or start dating Mandy (maybe that's the answer)? Joanie has simply quit talking. Hmm, maybe this is part of her transformation, that she has to stop talking and just "do" for a while. She is 18, after all. I'm sure she will start talking again once she and Sid are in Israel. Hard not to talk when you're there.
February 8, 2001
Took a break from the Hans and Sophie Scholl entries. I would probably be finished by now if I were not having to deal with conflicted emotions over Hans' letters.
Short week, with unexpected snowstorm on Monday. Decided to stay home, though at the time they were just saying an inch. Got eight inches! The delightful interruption to routine made it easier to take a break from everything else.
Organizational issues. How am I going to be able to manage the piles of photographs and other documents that are for the proposed CD-ROM? Right now, I have two stacks on the floor, and others in the bookcase. I have to start thinking about weeding out some of the information.
Dinner with Sara Lieberman. I think I am getting spoiled.
February 1, 2001
What a nice week! Arlene's here from Phoenix, so Mom and I lunched with her at King Street Grille. Why is "Hans and Sophie" taking so long? I wonder.
Very nice response from Susanne Hirzel. Wish I had been able to meet her in 1995. One of the few I missed. Her book makes her terribly vulnerable. She hides none of her questions, none of her pain. I hope I can honor that sacrifice in my own work.
January 25, 2001
Still talking about the possibility of a documentary. Good to have friends to brainstorm with. I still want the documentary to be the first step to a feature film or mini-series. Dan thinks the story is made for a documentary only. But even this isn't easy. A simple one-hour program with the basic information, or an in-depth approach? The latter costs more.
And I still want the mini-series, Hallmark Hall of Fame style! I know I am stubborn.
Tracked down lots of details this week. Hans Scholl spoke so disparagingly of the "French doctor" who committed suicide the day before Paris fell. But it felt like his usual shallow assessment of the situation. So searched till I found her: Sophie Morgenstern. Child psychiatrist. Freudian school. Instincts were right. He clearly passed judgment without having half the facts. A character trait he never lost.
Also became curious about where he was in France, especially after knowing where Willi and Fritz were. Never intended to get bogged down in the military aspect of this story, but turns out that their joint perspectives are fascinating. Fritz was in the northern "prong", Willi in the central, Hans in the southern. Hitler's "scythe" makes more sense when you read about it from inside the sweep.
Now, is that information, including Winston Churchill's braggadocio speech on June 4, 1940, appropriate for the scope of what I am doing? I don't know.
Eichmann book came today. Rosen did a great job. Only two typos in the whole book, that I found at least.
January 18, 2001
Talked to Dan and Peter and Finley about documentary possibilities. The brainstorming has begun!
Finished Willi Graf, 1933 - 1942, except for the photocopies of handwritten letters. I like that "young man" even more now than I did when I started this project seven years ago. There is just something so decent and honorable about Willi Graf. His decency knows nothing of blind duty. There's simply a sense that he followed his conscience and always tried to do what was right. People like him are rare enough in any age.
January 11, 2001
Incredible letter from Lilo Ramdohr. I enjoy finding out that the "insides" of a person are as lovely as their "outsides", and she qualifies.
White Rose Status Report as of January 1, 2001
Finley's database has been amazing. Everything from May 1, 1942 through October 12, 1943 is in. What is that, like 1300 entries? I've had good success in shaping the report so the information is useful. Nice feeling to be able to add ten entries at random dates, re-generate the report and sometimes be astounded at the difference a little new information can make.
I am learning too that this database is helping me pinpoint exact dates. Susanne Hirzel may have written, for example, that something happened at the beginning of October. So I put it in as October 1, just to have an anchor date. Then, when I compare her memories to Sophie's diary to Dr. Muth's letter, I can determine when it was. Sometimes by process of elimination (if Susanne was "here" on October 4, she couldn't be "there" too), sometimes by finding an exact match to a described activity.
So, what's left to do in the database? Willi Graf, 1933 - 1942 (actually two books worth, because Anneliese Knoop-Graf gave me a treasure, the photocopies of letters in his own handwriting, and not all are published). Hans and Sophie's letters, what we are allowed to read of them at least, 1933 - 1942. Otl Aicher's memoirs. Going back through Lilo Ramdohr's memoirs with a fine-tooth comb to make sure I didn't miss anything. Albert Riester's memoirs. The Ulm/Hitler Youth information from Dr. Lechner. And whatever I learn from Dr. W next week.
"What's left" actually sounds overwhelming on the face of it. But it's nothing compared to what's already in. This is the home stretch!
March 29, 2001
Smiles enough, and laughter the last seven days. Putting aside White Rose has been like opening the windows on a gorgeous spring day, letting in the fresh air. Mark Twain has that effect on you. I've simply got to finish White Rose, so I can go back to Joanie and Sid.
Have practiced writing in different voices this week. Nothing publishable. In fact, I need to shred anything that made it to the printer. It is simply a delicious exercise, thinking out loud from another point of view.
I think sometimes we've got to back away from the things that normally consume our lives and stand in the sunshine a while. Clears out cobwebs hidden by the dark. This I will do!
March 22, 2001
Early this week, I found myself struggling. I would look at the Otl Aicher book that has very little left to translate, and think I could not bear to write another word. I finally got out some Mark Twain I had not read in years. In the ensuing laughter, I knew that every once in a while, when you deal with such a dark subject, you simply have to take a break and step completely away without feeling guilty.
So I have managed to do exactly that. Working on a few short, bright, airy pieces, nothing more than happy fluff. Nothing serious, or long.
Maybe in a week or two, I can return to that dark place that does hold such light, a little refreshed and ready to tackle it head-on.
March 15, 2001
Not a writing week! Stephen King may say that every writer should write ten pages a day, but odds are, he doesn't have to deal with car repairs and telephone people. Only one-and-a-half pages this week. For the whole week. Sometimes you just have to be thankful for what you do get done and quit obsessing over the work you wanted to do.
Oh well. At least the imminent trip to the garage turned into a new car instead. Fun shedding the staid, business-image automobile for something a little more me.
March 8, 2001
Varied week, lots of little things accomplished. Sometimes a break from the darkness of the Third Reich is very much in order.
Finished one article for Children's Writer, started another. Doing these makes me understand a little more here or there about the corners of writing that I am still discovering, the niches that are out there, still unexplored.
Also started translation work for hagalil.com, that excellent German Jewish Web site. Focusing first on contemporary German Jewish life, because so much Shoah material is already available in English. It's a breath of fresh air to write about today's struggles, joys, and perplexities, instead of always looking to the past for inspiration.
Looking to the "future" too, as a very strange and funny dream may have solved the way to get Joanie to talk again. Maybe I can write a chapter or two there next week, get her story moving. Need to look up something about Jupiter, so I can get the commentary right. I like the days I work on Joanie's Letters, because I find myself laughing as I write.
March 1, 2001
White Rose work this week has taken me well beyond the usual confines of thinking about them in terms of resistance to Hitler. Their words resound in our own politics.
I am wondering about collecting things I find here and there, bits of wisdom across the centuries, on the horror of war. How is it that our sages tell us always and again that war is hell, yet each generation goes out and has to learn that anew? Such somber, dark reflections this week, but it can not be any other way after translating Otl Aicher's eyewitness account of what he saw.
I'd like for us to start defining heroes a little better. Remove professional sports figures from the pedestal first, those who simulate war, taking the sport out of it. How can we write the word hero so it's understood as the people who make us more whole? This has been a week for questions.
February 22, 2001
Today is the 58th anniversary of the execution of Christoph, Hans, and Sophie. Guess it's appropriate that this week has been filled with nothing but White Rose.
Nearly done entering Otl Aicher's memoirs. He gives such a clear view of who Sophie was. "She had hair like I like hair. She had a body like I like bodies." He speaks so frankly, no masks trying to be politically correct. Researching him a little has been fun too. Wonder why no one ever picked up on the fact that he was in Munich that week to talk to them about working with the resistance? It's been there in black and white for so long.
Finley came out Tuesday. We looked at the CD-ROM software that Brian recommended. It's exactly right. Now the only question remains, how to sort through the piles in the conference room to choose only those things that other people besides me will be interested in?
February 15, 2001
Finally got Hans and Sophie, 1933-1942 in the database. (2,200 entries and more to come!)
Went through ups and downs doing this. Sophie's honesty is refreshing, especially when it follows a section of Hans that is purposely deceitful. Wish Scholl archives could be forced to let us read the letters he wrote "girls" besides Rose Naegele at the same time he was writing her. Actually, at this point, I would be happy to read un-edited versions of letters to Rose!
Letter from Dr. Schmorell. More details on his wife's father's role in protecting many of the ones who were in the army, and her memories... He wrote that he had been worried that I had abandoned the White Rose project. If only he knew how close I came to doing just that last year.
Bomb scare this week at Valley Forge Post Office. Is that #16?
Thinking about the Joanie Letters. Am I getting close to figuring out her relationship to Sid? If so, I can finally get past Chapter Four. Should Kirk disappear, or start dating Mandy (maybe that's the answer)? Joanie has simply quit talking. Hmm, maybe this is part of her transformation, that she has to stop talking and just "do" for a while. She is 18, after all. I'm sure she will start talking again once she and Sid are in Israel. Hard not to talk when you're there.
February 8, 2001
Took a break from the Hans and Sophie Scholl entries. I would probably be finished by now if I were not having to deal with conflicted emotions over Hans' letters.
Short week, with unexpected snowstorm on Monday. Decided to stay home, though at the time they were just saying an inch. Got eight inches! The delightful interruption to routine made it easier to take a break from everything else.
Organizational issues. How am I going to be able to manage the piles of photographs and other documents that are for the proposed CD-ROM? Right now, I have two stacks on the floor, and others in the bookcase. I have to start thinking about weeding out some of the information.
Dinner with Sara Lieberman. I think I am getting spoiled.
February 1, 2001
What a nice week! Arlene's here from Phoenix, so Mom and I lunched with her at King Street Grille. Why is "Hans and Sophie" taking so long? I wonder.
Very nice response from Susanne Hirzel. Wish I had been able to meet her in 1995. One of the few I missed. Her book makes her terribly vulnerable. She hides none of her questions, none of her pain. I hope I can honor that sacrifice in my own work.
January 25, 2001
Still talking about the possibility of a documentary. Good to have friends to brainstorm with. I still want the documentary to be the first step to a feature film or mini-series. Dan thinks the story is made for a documentary only. But even this isn't easy. A simple one-hour program with the basic information, or an in-depth approach? The latter costs more.
And I still want the mini-series, Hallmark Hall of Fame style! I know I am stubborn.
Tracked down lots of details this week. Hans Scholl spoke so disparagingly of the "French doctor" who committed suicide the day before Paris fell. But it felt like his usual shallow assessment of the situation. So searched till I found her: Sophie Morgenstern. Child psychiatrist. Freudian school. Instincts were right. He clearly passed judgment without having half the facts. A character trait he never lost.
Also became curious about where he was in France, especially after knowing where Willi and Fritz were. Never intended to get bogged down in the military aspect of this story, but turns out that their joint perspectives are fascinating. Fritz was in the northern "prong", Willi in the central, Hans in the southern. Hitler's "scythe" makes more sense when you read about it from inside the sweep.
Now, is that information, including Winston Churchill's braggadocio speech on June 4, 1940, appropriate for the scope of what I am doing? I don't know.
Eichmann book came today. Rosen did a great job. Only two typos in the whole book, that I found at least.
January 18, 2001
Talked to Dan and Peter and Finley about documentary possibilities. The brainstorming has begun!
Finished Willi Graf, 1933 - 1942, except for the photocopies of handwritten letters. I like that "young man" even more now than I did when I started this project seven years ago. There is just something so decent and honorable about Willi Graf. His decency knows nothing of blind duty. There's simply a sense that he followed his conscience and always tried to do what was right. People like him are rare enough in any age.
January 11, 2001
Incredible letter from Lilo Ramdohr. I enjoy finding out that the "insides" of a person are as lovely as their "outsides", and she qualifies.
White Rose Status Report as of January 1, 2001
Finley's database has been amazing. Everything from May 1, 1942 through October 12, 1943 is in. What is that, like 1300 entries? I've had good success in shaping the report so the information is useful. Nice feeling to be able to add ten entries at random dates, re-generate the report and sometimes be astounded at the difference a little new information can make.
I am learning too that this database is helping me pinpoint exact dates. Susanne Hirzel may have written, for example, that something happened at the beginning of October. So I put it in as October 1, just to have an anchor date. Then, when I compare her memories to Sophie's diary to Dr. Muth's letter, I can determine when it was. Sometimes by process of elimination (if Susanne was "here" on October 4, she couldn't be "there" too), sometimes by finding an exact match to a described activity.
So, what's left to do in the database? Willi Graf, 1933 - 1942 (actually two books worth, because Anneliese Knoop-Graf gave me a treasure, the photocopies of letters in his own handwriting, and not all are published). Hans and Sophie's letters, what we are allowed to read of them at least, 1933 - 1942. Otl Aicher's memoirs. Going back through Lilo Ramdohr's memoirs with a fine-tooth comb to make sure I didn't miss anything. Albert Riester's memoirs. The Ulm/Hitler Youth information from Dr. Lechner. And whatever I learn from Dr. W next week.
"What's left" actually sounds overwhelming on the face of it. But it's nothing compared to what's already in. This is the home stretch!
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