the sun still shines

to anyone who has not heard of Sophie Scholl, i would highly suggest the 2005 German film Sophie Scholl: The Final Days. the poignant drama--telling the real life story of White Rose resistance fighters Sophie and Hans Scholl and Christoph Probst--prompted stares from my co-workers trickling into work (answering phones in the restaurant new year's day--closed for lunch) as they heard German shouting and saw me crying, watching the film. not the first time, not the last.

the thing i love about this film is what some people disliked: it did not rush through Scholl's arrest, interrogation, trial, and death. it used actual transcript for the dialogue, showing sophie's extreme integrity, eloquence, strength, and courage in a time and place when such things were seriously lacking.

she spoke of law and conscience when being questioned. her interrogator, Robert Mohr, said that there was the law and there were the people, and his job was to look at both and see where the inconsistencies lay. he pointed to an address book (symbolizing the people) when speaking of inconsistencies. Scholl was clear to say that the law changes, conscience doesn't. but Mohr was right in asking: how can we just let people decide which laws they're going to follow? in a case like Nazi Germany, it seems clear that conscience (of most people, however afraid they were of speaking up) was right, and law was wrong.

but i'm deciding that in retrospect and as a democracy loving non-racist/fascist. it's easy to think about being on the other side of things, especially when talking about the "End" and needing to suffer through the hard times (war) to get ahead--similar rhetoric used in Nazi Germany is used today, talking about lifting ourselves out of depression, about coming together (remember, at the beginning of Hitler's rule, he was popular, he did bring Germany out of the disastrous aftermath of the treaty of versailles). thankfully, there are more concrete things that we see: the genocide of Jews and other 'impure' peoples, the restriction on freedom of speech and thought, the failing and egotistical war. ("to my shame, i see the imminent death of twenty thousand men, that, for a fantasy and trick of fame, go to their graves like beds." Hamlet 4.4) it has nothing to do with reality, Mohr says. but of course, it has everything to do with reality. the ends never justify the means. reality is real and present, we make our judgements and decisions on that.

Mohr sympathizes with Ms. Scholl, though. he tries to give her a way out. her words, or her situation, or something impressed him, but he does not understand: she would be betraying her idea. were she to be let out, she would either do the same thing, ending her back in prison, or live in fear and submission, undermining and nullifying everything they believed and worked so hard for. she knew she did the right thing.

and who was she to think? Mohr, her lawyer, even People's Court president Roland Freisler ask her this: who is she to think she is better, to have her own opinions, to dare speak out? the real question is, who is she not to? her life, her family and friends, her country, her world is at stake. and who's opinion to trust better than one's own? it is the only thing one can take responsibility for, the only way to be in control, to be a human. we have reason and conscience for a purpose. that is the point of being human: to choose, to think, to decide. who are all the others not to do so?

Sophie Scholl, and her brother Hans and friends Probst and other White Rose members, had the courage to do what very few did at the time. she had high expectations of life and of humanity, and demanded to fight to live in a world where those ideals were upheld. though she was killed and her friends silenced, their cause was just and ultimately successful. danke sophie.

"i am, now as before, of the opinion that i did the best that i could do for my nation...somebody, after all, had to make a start."

es lebe die freiheit! long live freedom!