Sophie Scholl

So, most people reading this who know me will know I’m obsessed with Sophie Scholl.  

 

She’s tied in first place for my favorite person in all of history, right along with Anne Boleyn.  For those of you who haven’t heard of her, Sophie Scholl was a part of an underground resistance movement in Munich known as The White Rose.  It was a group of students who resisted the Nazis by distributing anti-Nazi leaflets in Munich and across Germany.  None of them were Jewish.  All of them were of middle-class origin and could’ve turned a blind eye to what Adolf Hitler was doing to their country.  But staying silent was not an option for them.

                Sophie Scholl and her brother Hans were caught distributing leaflets at the University of Munich in February 1943.  They were given a farce of a trial and then executed, along with Christoph Probst, another White Rose member.  In all, 6 of the members were executed.

                Several years ago, I wrote the poem below as part of my assignments for the Eastern Virginia Writing Project.  Since then, I’ve also written a children’s book about her that I hope to get published.  Last summer, my fiancée and I went to Munich simply to walk where she walked and visit her grave.  All the pictures on this post are pictures I took while there.

Freiheit

You, the curtains of your hair hiding

your face like a game of hide-and-go seek.

But they’ve already found you and hidden

you away, awaiting your confession.

Not that they need one.

 
You, who threw the leaflets from the steps.

Determined, defiant, deliberate.

So many find their futures there,

while you found your demise.


You, fear and conviction seeping through

the pores of your young, you’re oh so young, face.

 You, not a decade gone from

childhood games and clothes but

a lifetime away from the

smiling girl you’d been.

Facsimiles of the leaflets at the University of Munich.

Fritz won’t understand.

 You, you will never be a girl again.

 You, thrown in a cell and encouraged to take it back.

You’re young, you’re so young, they say and you can’t mean it.

Just take it back.

You say it again and take a broken arm in the process


 You, writing “freedom” on the paper that

took it away from you. Hands shaky as you

etch your creed onto your condemnation.

 You, they found your brother too, and he’s older

but he’s barely a man and he’ll never get a gray hair.

Christoph in another cell, his children shall grow

and surpass the greatest age their father ever was.

You, marched to the guillotine as you try not to cry.

The final meeting with your parents in your mind.

They can muster questions of “why” but they can’t muster

disappointment because they gave you this fight.

You, you’re so young, will stay this way.

 You, you’re so right, a part of the true solution.

You, you’re so young, will pave this way.

For the rest of us.

 

“Such a fine sunny day, and I have to go, but what does my death matter, if through us thousands of people are awakened and stirred to action.”—Sophie Scholl’s last words.

 *So, when I started doing research about The White Rose, I found out that although there were rumors, there was never any proof that Sophie’s arm was broken during her interrogation process.*