My favorite class this semester is my history of the Holocaust class. Today was the most inspiring class I have ever attended in my life. We talked about resistance fighters in Germany during the war. One story especially touched me.
Sophie Scholl was a 21 year old college student who decided to resist Hitler. She and her brothers wrote flyers about Hitler's mistakes and the atrocities that were being committed by the Nazi party.
Paper and envelopes were rationed at the time, so they stole paper from the university. They printed their flyers and sent them to the people they thought would listen. They ran out of envelopes for one of the flyers, so they decided to use distribute the extra flyers at school while everyone was in class.
This was, obviously, very risky. There was no freedom of speech. Sophie and her brother, Hans, placed stacks of flyers outside the classrooms and just as the bell rang that ended class, Sophie threw a stack off a ledge. ONE person saw her and they were reported.
They were arrested and later executed. This girl was seriously amazing though. During her questioning and trial, she refused to take back her thoughts on Hitler. In fact, at her trial she told the judge, "you will soon stand where we stand now. you may hang us now, but you will be hung later." Amazing, right?
She and her followers were executed without knowing the great impact they would have. One of their fliers was smuggled out of Germany and made it to Britain. During an air raid, the British dropped millions of copies of the flyer over Berlin.
This girl did what was seen as a small act. She simply distributed flyers and did not even know that it made a difference. It is much the same with us today. Things seem too big for us to make a difference sometimes, but maybe we just need to do SOMETHING. Get involved. Even if you don't think it makes a difference, it might someday. If nothing else, maybe your story will be told in a history class thousands of miles away and over 60 years later.
