Thinking of the White Rose

It was today in 1943 when the Nazis began to arrest the members of the White Rose.

This small group of German students and their professor had been posting leaflets denouncing the Nazi regime. They had succeeded in printing and posting six before they were arrested.

A few days after the arrests, Sophie and Hans Scholland and Christoph Probst were convicted of treason and hours after that beheaded. The rest of their band soon followed them to the guillotine.

They were a mixed bag of intellectuals of various persuasions. One of their number Alexander Schmorell had become Orthodox. He would be canonized by the Orthodox church for his part in the resistance.

Actually these young people were all martyrs to the cause of human dignity and worth. And, their brief days among us, their resistance to tyranny, and their witness to what we can be, well…

Lives, so short, so worth recalling

worth celebrating…

Their hymn…

for an English version.