AFTERWORD,
LECTURING & MEDIA CONTACT
SOLVING MYSTERIES: THE SECRET OF “THE WHITE ROSE”
By Jud Newborn
judnewborn@gmail.com
INTENDED AFTERWORD & HISTORICAL ADDENDUM TO:
SOPHIE SCHOLL
AND THE
WHITE ROSE
The Remarkable German Students
Who Defied
Hitler
FOREWORD BY
STUDS TERKEL
Book by Jud Newborn and
Annette
Dumbach
Afterword © Jud
Newborn 12/2005, 2/2006;
Update 6/2014; new edition cover & new testimonials added 12/2017; Important new notes, 8/2018
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
WGA Reg. Nr. 1966568
Update 6/2014; new edition cover & new testimonials added 12/2017; Important new notes, 8/2018
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
WGA Reg. Nr. 1966568
“OUR BEST”: German TV Audiences Vote Sophie and Hans
Scholl of The White Rose the 4th Most Important Germans of All Time,
Winning Over Bach, Goethe, Gutenberg, Willy Brandt, Bismarck and Albert
Einstein--11/2003 Votes of those under 40 alone put them in 1st place.
The White Rose is part of the permanent exhibition of The U.S. Holocaust
Memorial Museum,
Washington, D.C.
“Good, splendid young people! You shall not have died in vain; you shall
not be forgotten.”—THOMAS MANN, NOBEL LAUREATE (BBC Broadcast in German from Exile, 7/27/43
NOTE TO READERS 12/2005): These crucial findings fully update my co-authored book, Sophie Scholl
and the White Rose. They could not be
included in the new editions because of unresolved disputes with my co-author
and publisher. I therefore offer this important addendum to all members of the
public who – according the
requirements of sound historical research, solid journalism, and especially in
the humanitarian, truth-telling spirit of the White Rose members themselves – are eager to know the complete story,
however controversial. This includes the answers to the two most frequently
asked questions about Hans Scholl, his sister Sophie, and the White Rose
itself.
These revelations will make far more
sense—and be far more satisfying—if you have read the book first!
Further information for multimedia lecture
engagements and the media appears at the end.
-- Jud Newborn, NY, December,
2005
UPDATED NOTE, 2014: In early 2014 I worked on a draft for an expanded, updated scholarly version of this pamphlet, for a journal at Exeter University, UK, on invitation of Daniel Cohen: “Liberating ‘The White Rose’: Repressed Narratives in Hans Scholl’s Transformation from Hitler Youth to Anti-Nazi, and the Origin of Their Name.” I have indicated where I have inserted additional substantiating information that became available by that date. The version of this pamphlet does not have thorough citations, as it had originally been intended for the book version. That did not use footnotes, but would have included citations in the bibliography-- JN]
KEY UPDATED NOTE, 8/31/2018: Working with Pastor Dr. Robert Zoske of Germany, author of the critically acclaimed new biography of February, 2018, “Flamme sein! Hans Scholl und die Weiße Rose,” I include two major confirmations regarding Hans Scholl’s homosexuality later in this pamphlet. --JN
At the Cinema Arts Centre, Long Island, NY - credit: Harvey Birnbaum
There
are two pivotal mysteries about
the passionate young members of the White Rose German anti-Nazi resistance that
have long intrigued laymen and scholars alike.
The answers to these questions have even eluded family and friends of
the White Rose ever since the group began its brave and lonely defiance of
Hitler in June 1942. Yet they provide,
to a large extent, the pivotal turning point in the history of the White Rose
and are sorely in need of exploration.
What happened to motivate the 1937 transformation of the teenaged
Hans Scholl and his sister Sophie from fanatical Hitler Youth leaders to
passionate anti-Nazis? And why did Hans
and his friend Alexander Schmorell choose "The White Rose" as the
name for their resistance organization?
New sources provide vital clues for finally solving both of these
mysteries. These include the long lost trove of Gestapo interrogation
transcripts discovered in the former East Berlin in 1990, covering Sophie and
Hans Scholl’s arrest on February 18, 1943. (Gestapo interrogation transcripts
of other White Rose members, prosecuted in two additional trials, also became
available.)
But there also exists a record of Hans Scholl’s crucial prior arrest in 1937 while still a
teenager, files that have remained unexamined, even though they have been accessible
in Düsseldorf since the Nazi era. Other sources include my own investigations
since the book’s original 1986 publication, and the meticulous research of
Eckard Holler, whose important monograph can be found in the bibliography to
the new edition. Holler kindly provided me with copies of these and other
original German records. Impressed with
what he considered the importance of this essay, he encouraged me repeatedly to
publish it in Germany. (Hans Scholl
zwischen Hitlerjugend und d.j.1.1–Die Ulmer Trabanten. Puls 22, Verlag der
Jugendbewegung, Stuttgart, 1999.)
“The name 'The White Rose'
was chosen randomly," Hans told his Gestapo interrogator on the weekend of
his February 18th arrest. "I acted on the presupposition that certain
concrete concepts must be present for effective propaganda which
in themselves would say nothing, but resonate well [einen guten Klang haben], suggesting that a solid agenda stood
behind them."
"It is possible," he said, adding to his wordy yet vague
response, "that I chose the name on a purely emotional basis, since at the
time I was under the influence of the Spanish romantic ballads, ‘Rosa Blanca,’
by Brentano." (Hans Scholl, Gestapo Interrogation Records, 20.
Februar 1943).
This explanation has since been taken at face value in Germany -
although one obviously cannot count on the accuracy of answers given to the Gestapo
during interrogations! So far as the goal of “resonating well” was concerned,
the name “White Rose” certainly served this purpose, standing inevitably as a
symbol of purity against the darkness of Nazi terror. Hans and Alexander Schmorell, with whom Hans
collaborated in the writing of the first four leaflets, were surely aware of
this power when they dubbed themselves “The White Rose.”
But as the leaflets bearing this name show, Hans and his comrades
were far too literate, thoughtful and politically motivated for this to be a
sufficient explanation. The reasons
behind the name they chose surely would have been important to them in
substance as well as in symbol. After
all, it was for this resistance that they all were risking their lives.
In addition, the fact is that Clemens von Brentano never wrote
any “Spanish romantic ballads” called
the “Rose Blanca.” What then might Hans have had in mind with his off-handed reference
to what the Gestapo would consider an obscure, inoffensive early 19th century romantic
poem, along with his vague, yet wordy explanation? Was he trying to protect
someone?
If so, it would not be the first time he had misled the Gestapo
in order to protect a friend. On December 13, 1937, when he was barely
nineteen, a fresh-faced cavalry recruit and still a Nazi stalwart, Hans was
suddenly arrested by the Gestapo.
Another twenty teens were also rounded up.
Of the charges against Hans, the most serious one was that of
homosexual activity, “perpetrated” when he was only sixteen.
Before discovery of the Gestapo transcripts, Inge Scholl, the
sibling’s older sister and “keeper of the truth,” thoroughly misled the public
and subsequent writers on the White Rose by claiming that Hans was arrested
simply for having joined the illegal youth group, "d.j.1.11" in 1937.
Gestapo records show there was much more to it.
Prior to December of 1936, when all organizations other than the
Hitler Youth were declared illegal, many Hitler Youth members felt no
contradiction in belonging to such groups.
Hans actually became involved with the “d.j.1.11” well before it was
outlawed.
As early as the turn of the last century, a significant segment of
German youth felt a growing urge to seek freedom from the stifling restraints
of “bourgeois” society—a class also unloved by the Nazis. As George Mosse, one of the first cultural
historians to explain the origins of Nazism showed years ago, the appeal of
these exclusively “bündisch” male groups was deeply rooted in the culture of
Germany’s distinctive, counter-cultural youth movement known originally as the “Wandervögel”
[“Wandering Birds”] Elements of homoeroticism, if not actual homosexuality,
were fundamental to these groups. (See Mosse, “The Crisis of German Ideology,” 1966, pp.
176-177.)
Bündisch youth sought a connection with
the landscape and folk traditions of their own German “Heimat,” or homeland,
even while looking enthusiastically beyond Germany’s boundaries for
inspiration. Nothing was more important than “wandering,” or hiking throughout
the forests and mountains. They allowed
their often naked bodies to commune with their country’s natural “folk
geography,” as if this might imprint some deep, collective meaning upon their
own flesh and bones and thereby revitalize their Germanic identities. They often expressed their new-found freedom
in small ways, for example by camping out in Lappish folk “Kothes” rather than
paramilitary-style tents like those favored later by the Hitler Youth. The well-formed youthful male body, often
depicted in the nude, was idealized as the natural expression of their ideals.
So too, the works of such overtly homosexual poets as Stefan George were read
eagerly, among other free-thinking authors like the Jewish Stefan Zweig.
The homoeroticism of these groups was not intended, at least
overtly, to cross the line into actual sexual activity. As Hans Blüher, the primary proponent of the
Wandervögel had written, homoeroticism was to be a kind of glue that would bind
these young men together, its energy sublimated and directed outward for the
vital task of cultural renewal. (See
Blüher, “Wandervögel as an Erotic Phenomenon,” 1912.)
Nonetheless, group activities in such a free and exhilarating
atmosphere sometimes fostered sexual play as well as intense romantic crushes
between teenaged boys. This was supported culturally by a common theme among
the educated classes: the search by adolescents for a romanticized “ideal friend"—a
theme Hans Scholl readily evokes later when seeking to justify himself to the
Gestapo. Witness Thomas Mann’s famous
“Bildungsroman,” the novella Tonio
Kröger, in which Tonio seeks the love of the young Hans Hansen, longingly
but in vain. Mann then has him shifting focus later to Hansen’s female
counterpart, Ingeborg Holm. Mann, of
course, has been shown to have had strong homosexual leanings as an adult. However, for most if not all bündisch youth, these adolescent attachments were but a phase that passed
as they grew a little older, widened their social circles and began dating
girls. This held for the “d.j.1.11”
group which Hans had joined in 1935 along with other Hitler Youth from his home
town of Ulm, including his own superior as well as many of the boys he led.
For Hans, however, things were different.
And any homosexual activity was anathema to National Socialism.
The notorious “Paragraph 175” of the German criminal code, which outlawed
homosexuality, was made far more stringent in September 1935. Prior to Hitler’s take-over, Magnus
Hirschfeld’s German homosexual emancipation movement, the most successful in
the world, had counted among its supporters such leading figures as the great
sociologist Max Weber, who helped draft the Weimar Republic’s constitution. Now
Hirschfeld’s movement lay shattered. The
library of his “Institute for Sexual Research” was the first to be ransacked in
1933, its books tossed on the bonfires along with those of Thomas Mann, Sophie
Scholl’s beloved Heinrich Heine, and other supposedly corrupt, “Jewified” (verjüdete) expressions of the best and
most humane literature which Germany had to offer.
Even allegations of homosexuality now led to wide-scale
persecution, including the arrests of over 100,000 men, as well as the
imprisonment of at least 50,000 in the harshest of prisons. Some of these men were relegated to
concentration camps, where they were forced to wear the humiliating “Pink
Triangle” on their uniforms. Many of
them, abandoned by family members and rejected by other inmates, were
castrated, tortured and murdered. Even
into the 1990s, the German government failed to pay survivors the restitution
offered to other victims of Nazism - if those arrested for a “crime,” which
remained criminalized in Germany until 1994 - were courageous enough to apply
for compensation.
As elsewhere in the world, this case shows that prejudice against
homosexuality has not died out to this day [12/2005]. No doubt many today would
consider attributing any homosexual behavior to one of Germany’s greatest
anti-Nazi heroes a “tarnishing” or besmirching of his reputation as icon and
role model.
[Note / Excurs 8/2018: And, despite earlier
progress, it continues today, with draconian punishments in over 60 nations and
among fundamentalist groups. Hatred of homosexuals, and attempts to roll back
new gains in civil rights - along with a rising anti-Semitism and bigotry
toward “immigrants” and other minorities - also poses a danger with the rising
crisis of democracy and the increasing success of extreme right wing movements
in Europe and the United States. Tellingly, Donald Trump has labeled the free
press in the USA “Enemies of the People” - the exact same term in German used
by the Nazis to characterize the White Rose members, among many others:
“Volksfeine.”]
Up until his 1937 arrest, Hans had thought of himself the ideal
Nazi youth—decisive, devoted, “fanatic.”
Indeed, even just after his arrest, in a letter to his parents from
prison in Stuttgart on 18 December 1937, he used a classic Nazi slogan to
describe himself: “At present I’ve
plenty of time for reflection, and see my entire sunny youth passing before my
eyes. First childish games, soon serious work, and then the unflagging devotion
to creating a Gemeinschaft [zuletzt der
rastlose Einsatz für eine Gemeinschaft].” [Istitut für Zeitgeschichte-IfZArch, ED 474/44.]
He hadn't even known that same-sex sexual activity was a
"crime," he told the Gestapo, until he read about it in the newspaper
in late 1935. Nonetheless he admitted continuing his relationship with his “special
friend,“ the one-year younger Rolf Futterknecht, for a some time after—one
which he described to the Gestapo as “an overpowering love. . . that required
some means of relief.“
There is is no direct evidence that Hans ever identified himself
as homosexual. Although he maintained
friendships from his “d.j.1.11“ band of friends (including their homosexual
mentor, the slightly older Ernst Reden), by the time of his 1937 arrest, and
even while being investigated by the Gestapo, he was making a stab at “dating” a
few girls.
Note: 8/31/2018: Confirmation of Hans Scholl’s homosexuality
from Dr Traute Lafrenz Page: This author and Pastor Dr. Robert Zoske of
Hamburg, author of the critically acclaimed new biography of February, 2018,
“Flamme sein! Hans Scholl und die Weiße Rose,” finally elicited a definitive
breakthrough regarding the controversy over Hans’ sexuality. Following up on
our joint efforts of several months, in a phone conversation with Pastor Zoske,
Dr. Traute Lafrenz Page made the following statements:
"Into her 100th year,
Traute Lafrenz remained silent about the reasons she and Hans Scholl broke off
their relationship. But in a telephone
conversaton on August 28, 2018, she finally explained that Hans had had a ‘deep
problem’ that ‘plagued him greatly,’ but
one which he had kept ‘dreadfully secret.’ He had attempted ‘to eliminate this
conflict by focusing on higher ideals’ but could ‘never free himself of it.’ This burden was ‘so significant for him, that
it had ‘formed his character profoundly.’ “]
The most important to him, curiously, was the 14 year old Lisa
Remppis, the child of Scholl family friends, “someone I can wholeheartedly
love” precisely because of her fresh, childlike innocence, which he would never
comprise, as he expressed in a letter to his parents from his cavalry post in
Bad Cannstatt on 14. March 1938 [IfZArchiv, ED 474/44]. During the period of
his resistance activity, he made two apparently unsuccessful attempts at heterosexual
relationships. The most important of which, however, touted as proof that he
had been a “Lothario,” was later described laconically as problematic by the
young woman in (see below).
Ultimately six of the approximately twenty Ulm boys rounded up were
indicated, but only two were actually tried and convicted. One of those two was
Hans Scholl, whom the Gestapo had entrapped a web of corroborating evidence
from which he could not extricate himself.
The Gestapo transcript reveals headstrong, garrulous testimony as
Han strove to justify himself while relieving Rolf Futterknecht of any responsibility. "I am inclined to be passionate,"
Hans said. "I can only justify my
actions on the basis of the great love I felt for [Rolf]. I can hardly comprehend my behavior
today." He argued that the Hitler
Youth itself had created the conditions for same-sex relationships by
prohibiting interaction with girls. And
wasn’t fanatical “service to the Volk” always touted as the most important
thing anyway?
Nonetheless, Hans’ confession was poignant and gallant. "I must admit that I am the guilty
party," Hans told the Gestapo. "To some extent, I was seen by [Rolf]
as someone in a position of authority, to whom he had subordinated himself.”
In this context, Hans' words are transformed from a
confession of wrongdoing into a sacrifice on behalf of others, an early
indication of his emerging adult character.
[Note - Update: During Hans’ trial, which
his mother reported in great detail in letters home, Rolf, who had been spared
indictment by standing as state witness, wept while testifying against Hans,
saying between sob that, in effect, he
had been mercilessly pressured, threatened and manipulated by the Gestapo, and
that otherwise he would not have been making any accusations at all. (See Hermann, Ulrich, ed. Beltz Verlag, 2012.)
Hans
was found guilty on June 2, 1938, with the State’s
prosecuting attorney asking for a one-year prison sentence. The normally harsh judge, however, decided on
just one month—considered as “time already served”—allowing Hans’ case to fall
under a general amnesty that had been put into law on April 30, 1938 for those
participating in alternative youth group activity. The judge also cited
Hans’s exemplary record and the many strong testimonials offered in his
defense. This included high praise from his superior in the cavalry. His
earlier actions, the judge reasoned, had amounted to a teenaged “indiscretion”
committed under the pernicious influence of an “older” man—Ernst Reden, who was
actually only four years older than Hans, and was all of twenty-two in
1938. Hans was thus able to leave the
court a free man.
Reden,
a dear friend of all of the Scholl siblings, was less lucky than Hans. Also let off for “time already served,” Reden
was quickly whisked away by the Gestapo to serve several months in the concentration
camp Welzheim.=
Hans Scholl’s arrest placed a deeply stigmatizing focus on
his adolescent identity, as letters to his parents reveal. “No matter how I
try, I no longer feel quite right here,” the 19 year old wrote his parents on
20 January 1938 from Bad Cannstatt, where his cavalry unit was based. “There
are hours when everything is fine, and then this gloomy shadow is there again,
covering everything. I struggle constantly
with feelings of inferiority” [IfZArchiv ED 474/44 ].
It is obvious that the circumstances of his arrest also
thrust unexpected concerns into his mind about his sexuality. Indeed, in the very first letter he wrote to
his parents from Gestapo prison in Stuttgart on 14 December 1937, informing
them of his arrest for transgressing the infamous Nazi “Paragraph 175a” sharpening
the existing laws criminalizing homosexuality - Hans reveals immediately that
he had been carrying a deep, secret burden about his sexual urges which he had been
struggling for years, at least toward Rolf if no one else, and ‘through tireless work on himself’ had
thought himself to ‘have been washed
clean again.” [durch unermüdliche
Arbeit an sich selbst wieder rein gewaschen zu sein.”] (IfZArchiv ED 474/44.) He also expressed fears about being kicked out
of the military, for him an especially distressing development, as up until his
arrest he had expected to have a career there.
The experience of having the Gestapo dig into the most intimate
details of his life for an extended time, leading to a public trial, and for
reasons he originally had thought inconsequential, obviously ignited a
transformation in Hans Scholl’s views about Nazism from admiration to loathing.
It certainly contributed markedly to his growing alienation and
isolation. Evidence from his letters and elsewhere reveal that during his
ordeal Hans suffered understandably from depression. This, along with
occasional mood swings and alleviating drug use, increased later, especially
under the pressures he and Sophie endured during period of their active
resistance.
On December 18, 1937, sent from his detention cell in the
Stuttgart prison, Hans revealed the extent to which his arrest had generated
feelings of shame, while altering his fundamental values in a manner that would
increasingly distance him from National Socialism.
“Dear Parents,” he writes.
“Now that a day has gone by since Father visited me, I want to write to
you both. Thank you so much for coming,
Father. You brought me fresh hope. I’m
so immensely sorry to have bought this misfortune on the family, and I was
often close to despair during my first few days in detention. I promise you, though, I’ll put everything
right. When I’m free again, I’ll work
and work—that and nothing but—so you can look on your son with pride again. . .
.
“Only now am I fully alive to my father’s desire, which he himself
possessed and passed on to me, to become something great for the sake of
mankind.” (See editor Inge Jens’ anthology,
heavily redacted by Inge Scholl, of Hans and Sophie’s letters and diaries, “At
the Heart of the White Rose,” 1987.)
In a letter to his parents on 14 March 1938 from Bad
Cannstatt, we see an emerging transformation in Hans’s attitudes toward Nazism,
especially as German troops began marching into Austria for the Anschluss: Hans’ unit could not take part. “In our excited fantasies we built all kinds
of castles in the air: evenings in Vienna, strolling along the Danube. . . . ” Instead of joining in, however, Hans writes
from a position of confused alienation:
“I’ve been holding
back from taking any positions on this
political development. My head is heavy with confusion. I can’t understand people anymore. When I hear these faceless cries of ecstatic
enthusiasm [Begeisterung] coming from
the radio, I want to go out onto a great lonely plane and be there alone.” (IfZ)
In this context, Hans Scholl’s disillusionment with Nazism
did not begin with his participation as Ulm’s Hitler Youth troop leader during
the 1935 Nazi Rally in Nuremberg, as has been claimed to date, but rather with
his shattering experience during his trial 1937-1938 for illegal youth
activities and in particular his conviction for transgressing “Paragraph 175a,”
the law banning homosexuality.
Shortly after his release, Hans wrote these words in his
diary: "If you tear our hearts from our bodies - it is you who’ll burn to
death for it.” )See Holler, 1999.)
With these words it seems as if Hans were suddenly speaking
not only for himself, but for anyone who could fall afoul of tyranny—for all of
humanity. The anguish and outrage that
Sophie must have felt over the persecution of her beloved older brother and
Ernst Reden must have had a powerful effect on her too. Over the seven months
of his travails, Hans had caught up with his wiser sister, maturing into a
young man willing to stand up for truth, justice and love without bounds, even
if it meant protecting others, and at great personal risk.
As Hans himself wrote to his parents from Stuttgart on
January 6, 1938, “I can’t find the words to convey my gratitude to you both. .
. . But maybe I’ve become more of a man in recent days than I’d once have
thought possible. . . . Fondest love, Hans.”
Which leads us to the mystery of the White Rose name. “B. Traven” was the pseudonym of a German
novelist whose identity was elusive as quicksilver. Most likely he was the actor and communist
revolutionary, using the stage name Ret Marut, who fled to Mexico from Germany
following the collapse of the short-lived “Soviet” republic in Bavaria in
1919. He wrote many novels in German
from Mexican exile, although only one, translated into English, was a
resounding success: The Treasure of the
Sierra Madre, later filmed by John Huston, with Humphrey Bogart as its
star. But the reclusive Traven never
revealed himself to the public.
Once the Nazis came to power, Traven’s radical writings were
deemed so inimical that his entire oeuvre was symbolically tossed onto the
bonfires, and their reading banned.
Although we cannot say for certain, there is fairly good reason to
believe that one of these banned novels, The
White Rose (Die Weisse Rose),
published in Germany in 1929, may have found its way into Hans Scholl’s hands.
Its left-wing author and novels were widely read among the members of bündisch
youth groups. (It may also have been
known to Hans’ closest collaborator and co-founder of the White Rose, Alexander Schmorell.)
Traven's La Rosa Blanca—The
White Rose—is the name of an idealized hacienda where the mixed (mestizo) Indian-Mexican
peasants maintain their folkways and live in harmony, close to the land, until
a ruthlessly exploitative American oil concern appears on the scene. La Rosa Blanca sits on an island surrounded
by rich oil fields. But the patriarch of
the hacienda puts no store in money and refuses to sell.
Seeking to steal the hacienda's holdings, Condor Oil spirits away
the village's illiterate leader, presenting his signature on a bill of sale
when in fact they have had him murdered. Offering to help the villagers, the
local governor promises the Rosa Blanca's inhabitants that he will try to give
them back their freedom and their lives, even though he knows that his efforts
against the U.S. imperialist juggernaut must fail.
This story would have resonated powerfully for Hans Scholl and
Alex Schmorell as the idea of creating a group to resist the Nazis coalesced in
their minds. (Although Hans was by no means a communist, Alex was decidedly
socialist in inclination.) The words of its denouement seem almost inescapable
in their kinship with the spirit and message of the German White Rose:
" 'I promise you I'll do everything in my power to discover
the truth,' " the governor tells the villagers.
“ ‘And I promise you that when I've found the truth, the White
Rose won't have been plucked for nothing.
If, perhaps, it can never bloom again in all its beauty, it shall
certainly not fade away, never. It shall
bear fruit that will ripen. And that
shall be the beginning of the liberation of the country and its citizens. We will have a country in which every single
rose, white or red, shall have freedom to bloom, to be as beautiful as it was
meant to be, and to flourish for as long as it was intended to flourish.'
"
The novel’s conclusion resonates even further with the White
Rose’s vision of a federated, democratic Europe founded on socialist
principles—as well as their uncompromising rejection of Nazism’s racist
ethnocentrism.
Despite their loss, the residents of the Rosa Blanca find a larger
world opening up for them. “They became
aware of. . . the thought that all men on earth are one,” Traven wrote, ”that
everyone is part of a great brotherhood.”
Gradually they came to see themselves as part of "an ever greater
homeland that seemed to have no limit, comprising every man, every nation,
every thought that was ever thought. . . .
“A day was coming when everyone could rightly say,” Traven
concluded, “today we are citizens of the world.
What greater thing can a man gain than a greater love for his fellow
man!"
During his Gestapo interrogations the weekend of February 20,
1943, Hans Scholl, when asked about the origins of the name “White Rose,” had
added, almost offhandedly, "It is possible that I chose the name on a
purely emotional basis, since at the time I was under the influence of the
Spanish romantic ballads, ‘Rosa Blanca,’
by Brentano."
As mentioned already, there are no “Spanish romantic ballads” by
Brentano called the “Rosablanca.”
(Brentano did write a difficult cycle of “romances,” 2600 stanzas
in total, called “Die Romanzen vom Rosenkranze” - “The Romances of the Rosary,”
in which various roses are mentioned, including white ones. It revolves around
the theme of avoiding temptation in order to achieve, through great personal
struggle, redemption for a horrendous crime of theft against the Virgin Mary,
resulting in a curse of depraved sexuality and incest for the thief’s offspring
over many generations. This might well have resonated for Hans with his
self-avowed, shame-ridden struggle to repress his homosexual feelings. But in
any event, Brentano’s work is set partially in Egypt and in Bologna, Italy, not
Spain.)
There may have been, of course, a confluence of influences, some
more or less significant, in his and Alexander Schmorell’s choice of name.
But curiously enough, there was
a decidedly romantic “Spanish” poem named “La Rosa Blanca” which might well
have generated strong emotions in Hans—but it wasn’t written by Clemens
Brentano in the early 19th Century. It was written by B. Traven, who made it the
epigraph to the 1929 and 1931 German editions of his leftist utopian and rather
romantic novel about deceit, exploitation and oppression: “The White Rose”: [See original German version in Addenda
below.]
Die Weisse Rose (La Rose Blanca)
A Song of the Mexican Hacienda
Along the
edge of the barranca,
Bathed
daily by the Golden Sun,
Caressed by
Lady Moon at night,
Faithfully
blooms the White Rose.
Every day
at dawn
The birds
sing thy praise;
How thou’st
bloomed since God created thee,
Forever
flourish, White Rose.
And though
one day I too must wither,
White Rose,
may’st thou bloom on,
And my last
life’s breath
Will be my
farewell kiss to thee.
If, as it now seems likely, Traven's The White Rose may well have
been a primary inspiration for the name, why would Hans Scholl have given the
Gestapo such a vacuous explanation—saying they had picked their name at random,
while still providing them with a supposed “concrete” source - a harmless,
little known, 19th century poem called "The White Rose”?
An obvious answer comes to mind: Hans may well have been trying to
divert the Gestapo's attention away from his dear friend Josef Söhngen—the 47 year-old
“bachelor” bookseller who secretly nurtured the White Rose resistance by
providing a meeting place, a cellar in which to hide away their duplicating
machine when necessary, as well as an endless supply of banned books from his secret
cache to boost their morale.
More so than any other White Rose member, Hans and Söhngen became
special friends during the time of the White Rose resistance activities. Hans often would turn up outside the door to
the bookseller’s apartment during the late hours of the night, seeking solace
through the kind of intensely intimate conversation he almost certainly could
not share with others.
During Söhngen’s interrogations - in which the Gestapo focused
only narrowly on the White Rose trials - they attempted to intimidate the
bookseller by asking repeatedly if he was aware that Hans’s record had been
‘besmirched” in 1937/8 for transgressing Paragraph 175a, the anti-homosexual
law. He denied it, of course. But in
their final report on his interrogations, they simply presume Söhngen’s
homosexuality. They referred also to what
they considered a politically harmless sexual relationship he was having with a
German soldier, Fritz Seidel. Seidel
also spent a great deal of time with Söhngen, often also visiting him in his apartment
at late hours. Seidel asserted that
their relationship was in no way homosexual, but merely avuncular on Söhngen’s
part - although the soldier did reveal that a nearby landlady had once ‘warned”
him unnecessarily to avoid the older bookseller because he “was a homosexual.” [D. Bundesarchiv;
Copies at IfZ]
[Note: 8/31/2018: Dr. Florian Papp, the son of one of
Söhngen’s dearest friends since childhood, Elisabeth Papp, confirmed that
Söhngen was definitely homosexual, something the entire family accepted with
equanimity, and lived as a gay man quite openly after the war. (However, as we know from elsewhere, he was
greatly sorrowed that the Scholl family left him out of any of Hans’ post-war
memorial events, as if their relationship had been unimportant). This confirmation resulted from a joint effort
by this author and Pastor Dr. Robert Zoske
(see “Note 2018 above, p.4), author of the biography of February, 2018, exploring
Hans Scholl’s struggle with his homosexuality: “Flamme sein! Hans Scholl und
die Weiße Rose.”]
It would seem that Hans, however, with his keen intelligence,
anti-Nazi sentiment and deeply troubled conscience, was the soldier for whom
Söhngen felt the strongest attachment, and for whom he had the greatest but
unlikely hopes of a possible romantic relationship,
During this period, Hans broke up with his
girlfriend—another pivotal and courageous White Rose member, Traute
Lafrenz. Lafrenz has said little about
their usually overblown relationship in interviews, other than the laconic
words that “it quickly became quite
clear to me that things would not work between us. The reasons why, I prefer not to say.” (See
Sibylle Bassler, Die Weiße Rose: Zeitzeugen erinnern sich,” 2006.) A few
years later, in the German edition of Peter
Normann Waage’s 2010 biography of her, when asked about rumor of Hans Scholl’s
homosexuality, she simply replied in English, “So, what?!” (Es lebe die Freiheit! Traute Lafrenz und die Weiße Rose, p.51.]
Hans took up then with another young but troubled woman, Gisela
Schertling. Coming from a “good Nazi
family,” Gisela had a psychologically vulnerable personality, documented even
as a school girl, and had never found a set of friends with whom she could feel
comfortable or accepted. Hans Scholl and
his entire circle were considered charismatic.
She was therefore surprised and excited when Hans showed interest in her,
drawing her into the group despite the reservations of the others. There is evidence that Hans’ interest in
Gisela was focused more on her non-threatening adoration of him, and her
manipulability, which made her a likely choice for heterosexual
experimentation. [Bundsarchiv; Copies at
IfZ]
There is no evidence the Hans and Söhngen shared a sexual
relationship. It is enough to know that they
both felt deeply marginalized by Nazi society and politics. Hans’ feelings of
being stigmatized by his earlier arrest for homosexual practices would only
have increased his trust in the bookseller as his only confidanté.
In fact he regularly discussed the content of his leaflet drafts with Söhngen,
as well as his plan, just two days before his February 18 arrest, to distribute
leaflets throughout the University of Munich atrium. (The bookseller had cautioned him strongly not
to do so.)
But other times, as Söhngen relates, “he was simply the young
friend who came to me to escape the constant stress with a discussion about
Kleist or some religious problem, or often relax in silence with a glass of
wine. Once, when he showed up around
midnight, he said, ‘just let me sit here for half an hour, in order to regain
my balance….’ ” [Söhngen Memoir, IfZ
- Note: this author examined and
photocopied every eye-witness account in the IfZ Auerbach collection during his
1980-1983 doctoral fieldwork in Germany.]
Hans and Söhngen had also maintained a warm, deep but careful
correspondence, especially given the military’s censorship of letters, when
Hans was serving on the Eastern Front in the summer and late fall of 1942. However, an examination of the few letters
they exchanged - part of an eye-witness memoir Söhngen submitted to Inge Scholl
and then Munich’s Institute für Zeitgeschichte not long after the war - suggest
that their communications conveyed far more than meets the eye.
Indeed, Hans, in ecstatically praising the wide open expanses of
Russia, says Russia is “as boundless as love
itself.” He writes exuberantly about the liberating effect this has had on him,
allowing “fantasies” to be fully acknowledged that in the stultifying confines
of Germany he had not earlier dared give rein. He writes how eager he is to
share his experiences in full with Söhngen when they are finally together again,
as his feelings are “far too weighty for a mere piece of white paper to bear.” Among
the comments in Söhngen’s reply was that yes, “love is a great riddle….” [IfZ,
J. Söhngen transcribed correspondence, 1946]
[Note: For those who have had to suppress their homosexuality,
leading double-lives at home, travels to foreign lands, far from their
families, friends and the circles where they are know, have often had a
liberating, if sometimes temporary effect upon return.]
Upon his return, Hans had hidden one of Söhngen’s letters amid his
underwear in a drawer (perhaps further suggesting the importance of their
relationship to him). When the Gestapo ransacked Hans’s apartment, they found
this letter and then searched through Söhngen’s, finding a collection of every
letter Hans had sent him. In the letter
the Gestapo had dug out of Hans’ bureau drawer, they found a careful yet
fervent reply to what Söhngen interpreted as Hans’s willingness finally to
accept his homosexuality. Söhngen seems to have read (perhaps incorrectly) between
the lines, suggesting in his reply that perhaps Hans was also giving him hope
that his longed for, deeper relationship with Hans might be a possibility after
all.
Prior to his execution, Hans’ last words included messages for
each of his closest friends and family members. In Inge Scholl’s original
unpublished eyewitness memoir, submitted to the Munich Institut für
Zeitgeschichte’s collection of post-war eye-witness accounts assembled by Dr.
Helmut Auerbach, she states that her brother’s very last words were not for a
family member, buy for an unnamed someone - expressed while a “tear ran down
his cheek,” as he bent over to hide his emotions. She changed that unnamed
someone into a girl (Mädchen) in her famous little book less than a decade
later. Many readers and researchers therefore
presumed she was referring to one of his “girlfriends.” [Inge Scholl and Söhngen Memoirs, IfZ
Auerbach collection.]
Inge Scholl didn’t publish the words of this last, mysterious
farewell. Söhngen, however, knew precisely what the careful message was that
Hans had left for him - one that likewise moved him to tears - since Hans’
mother had conveyed it to him personally. He included it in his memoir: “The
most beautiful and yet sorrowful acknowledgment, from his mother… mere minutes
before his execution: ‘If I should survive these times, I would want to be as
ready as [Söhngen] was, to help students - even at risk of my own life.”
Were these the words of Hans’ very last farewell - not to a person
whose name Inge later changed into a girl’s, - but to Söhngen himself, Han’s
only confidante, the older man who had “mentored” him so selflessly?
Hans knew Söhngen, along with others connected with the White
Rose, was likely to be picked up by the Gestapo. So he may well have improvised
regarding the origins of the White Rose name in an attempt to protect his
friend from being incriminated for sedition, and perhaps even suffering the
fate that Hans already feared lay in store for himself.
Hans’ strategy seemed to have worked. His dear friend was judged
an apparently unimportant figure so far as the White Rose investigations were
concerned, and his case was essentially dismissed.
As B. Traven wrote, "What greater thing can a man gain than a
greater love for his fellow man!"
Afterword © Jud
Newborn 12/2005, 2/2006; Update 6/2014;
new edition cover & new testimonials added 12/2017
new edition cover & new testimonials added 12/2017
Important new notes, 8/2018
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
WGA Reg. Nr. 1966568
DIE WEISSE
ROSE
(LA ROSA
BLANCA)
Ein Mexikanisches Rancho-Lied
Nah’ am Rande der Barranca,
Gebadet tags im Sonnengold
Geliebkost von Frau Luna nachts,
Traulich blüht La Rosa Blanca.
Jeden Tag schon in der Frühe
Sing’n die Vögel deinen Ruhm;
Wie du blühst, seit Gott dich schuf,
Ewig, weiße Rose, blühe.
Wenn ich auch einst verwelken muß,
Weiße Rose, du sollst blühen,
Und mein lezter Lebenshauch
Ist
für dich mein Abschiedskuß.
—B. Traven,
1929
Epigraph to “Die Weiße Rose,” by B.
Traven, Büchergilde Gutenberg, Berlin, 1929.
“DIE
GEDANKEN SIND FREI!”
(“YOUR THOUGHTS ARE FREE! )
Sophie Scholl played this great German freedom song
on her flute under her father’s
Gestapo prison
cell window at midnight to give
him courage
during his imprisonment
Die Gedanken
sind frei, my thoughts freely flower.
Die Gedanken
sind frei, my thoughts give me power.
No scholar can map them, no hunter can trap them,
No man can deny: Die Gedanken sind frei!
So I think as I please, and this gives me pleasure.
My conscience decrees this right I must treasure.
My thoughts will not cater to duke or dictator,
No man can deny: Die
Gedanken sind frei!
And if tyrants take me and throw me in prison,
My thoughts will burst free like blossoms in season.
Foundations will crumble, the structure will tumble,
And free men will cry: Die Gedanken sind frei!
(Courtesy of Dover Publications, from "Songs of Work
and Protest," Edith Fowke and Joe
Glazer, eds., New York, 1973.
Translation: Arthur Kevess.)
Recorded by Pete Seeger in 1966, after he was free of the
McCarthy Blacklist, on an album called “Dangerous Songs.”
=====================================
ABOUT JUD NEWBORN:
TESTIMONIALS,
BIOGRAPHY, LECTURES, MEDIA RESOURCE
Dr JUD NEWBORN - 2018 Recipient of the Anne Frank Center’s “Spirit of Anne Frank Human Writes Award” http://www.annefrank.com/safa (following Congressman John Lewis, the “conscience of the US Congress” & NY Times Pulitzer Prize winning columnist Nicholas Kristof) - is a NY-based multi-media lecture artist, museum & film curator, an expert on anti-Semitism, extremism and the fight for human rights worldwide. A pioneer in the creation
of modern Holocaust museums, he served as Founding Historian, curator &
co-Creator of NY’s Museum of Jewish Heritage--A Living Memorial to the Holocaust
from 1986 to 2000, & contributed to aspects of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial
Museum.
Dr. Newborn has lectured from San Diego’s Old Globe Theater, L.A’s Simon Wiesenthal Center & major uni-versities
& religious institutions to The United Nations, and from Canada to Cape
Town. http://www.linkedin.com/in/judnewborn
Today
he serves as Special Guests Curator for the renowned Cinema Arts Centre, LI,
bringing in Nobel Laureates, Kennedy Center Honorees, Academy Award, Tony,
Grammy, Emmy & Pulitzer Prize winners, many who have made great
contributions to society and human rights, to interview before live audiences.
Dr.
Newborn is co-author of the critically acclaimed classic account of the German
student anti-Nazi resistance movement, Sophie Scholl And The White Rose - praised by The New York Times, Newsweek
International
and singled out by Library Journal - providing the full story to partial
Academy Award-nominated, subtitled German film of 2005, “Sophie Scholl: The Final
Days.”
Expanded and updated, the book has
been released in 2018, in a 3rd, special 75th Anniversary
Year Edition, with endorsements
attesting to its urgent relevance today by such figures as
Norman Lear, Peter Yarrow (of Peter, Paul & Mary), Elie Wiesel, Prof.
Deborah Lipstadt, Rabbi Meyer May, Executive Director of Los Angeles’
Simon Wiesenthal Center, and Michael Berenbaum, Original Project Director
of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. Dr. Newborn
has also written for The New York Times and Jerusalem Post among other leading
publications, and appeared as a consultant throughout the media, from the CBS
Morning News, CNN and other networks to NPR’s “All Things Considered.”
He
currently has in development the first major Hollywood feature film about the
White Rose, based partly on his book, and partly on his own special
findings.
Dr.
Newborn was educated at New York University and Cambridge University (where he
was a poet and young writer at Clare Hall College). A Fulbright and Woodrow
Wilson National Fellow, he was awarded his PhD with Distinction in 1994 by the
University of Chicago for “Arbeit macht frei: [Work Makes Free]: The Underlying
German Cultural Meanings of the Holocaust.
Dr.
Newborn broke a decades-long barrier by giving the first lecture on the
Holocaust ever held at the UN in July 1995, at which time he called out against
the UN’s abandonment of Bosnia Muslims to mass murder. During his European
fieldwork from 1980-1983, he also hunted down former SS officers and worked
briefly undercover for Poland’s Solidarity Freedom Movement in 1982, six months
into the Communist Declaration of Martial Law and the sealing of the borders..
His award winning short film, Ingrid Pitt: Beyond the Forest,
is one of the first uses of animation to tell the miraculous true story of a
child Holocaust survivor even younger than Anne Frank was. Created in
collaboration with Two Time Academy Award nominated filmmaker Bill Plympton, the
animated was done by ten year old Perry Chen, with narration by actress Ingrid
Pitt (“Where Eagles Dare”), just months before her death.
As a poet and lyricist he has collaborated with
country, pop and classical composers, including Pulitzer Prize winner
Shulamit Ran.
Dr. Newborn most recently was instrumental in saving and bringing
to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum the world’s largest and most
important collection of 900 anti-Semitic artifacts covering five centuries. The
collection, specially featured alongside the Steve Spielberg Shoah Foundation’s
Video History of the Holocaust Collection, fills an enormous gap in Holocaust
museum collections, providing with dramatic, visceral effect the previously ungrasped
extent to which anti-Semitism was part-and-parcel of European popular culture,
thereby paving the way for the Holocaust, and the avid collaboration of many
European nations.
Today Jud Newborn serves as Special Guest Programs
Curator for Long Island, NY’s renowned Cinema Arts Centre, bringing in
Nobel Laureates, Kennedy Center Honorees, and Academy Award, Emmy, Grammy,
Tony and Pulitzer Prize winners to interview from
consciousness-raising programs before live audiences.
Jud Newborn believes firmly in not just “talking the talk,” but in “walking the walk.”
Jud Newborn believes firmly in not just “talking the talk,” but in “walking the walk.”
Working with the Project Director of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial
Museum, Dr. Newborn was also responsible for insuring that the White Rose
became part of that museum’s permanent exhibition.
LECTURES TOPICS INCLUDE:
1) SPEAKING TRUTH TO POWER: THE
WHITE ROSE STUDENT ANTI-NAZI
RESISTANCE - AND HEROES IN THE FIGHT FOR HUMAN RIGHTS
TODAY (A
Dramatic, Multimedia Program). Using stirring music, 80 compelling
images and suspenseful storytelling, Dr. Newborn recounts how Sophie Scholl and
her brother Hans - former fanatical Hitler Youth leaders, the latter arrested
for a teen homosexual relationship - transformed uniquely to become the
greatest heroes of the German anti-Nazi resistance , and icons today.
“We will not be silent,” their wartime leaflets
declared. “We are your bad conscience. The White Rose will
not leave you in peace!” On
February 18, 1943, they mounted a gallery high above the University of Munich’s
vast atrium and scattered hundreds of leaflets down upon the heads of
astonished students in a classic act of political theater. It was the
only public protest against Nazis ever to be staged.
But Dr. Newborn’s program does not remain in
the past. Relating the White Rose story to today’s most
compelling current events, he then presents an array of “White Rosers” today -
inspiring heroes of all backgrounds, abroad and at home - who risk themselves
for freedom and our shared humanity.
2) LIONS OF JUDAH: THE
COMPLETE STORY OF JEWISH ANTI-NAZI RESISTANCE—AND ITS INDISPENSABLE
LESSONS FOR TODAY. Dr. Jud Newborn sets the
dramatic story of Jewish anti-Nazi resistance in a unique, eye-opening
framework that also explains its relevance for today. Treating the entire
scope of Jewish resistance, from Western to Eastern Europe and North Africa,
"Lions of Judah" provides accounts of Jewish heroism that will
astound and inspire—while fundamentally changing our assumptions about how Jews
responded to Nazi terror.
3) TO LIFE! A POST-MODERN HASIDIC
TALE OF THE HOLOCAUST. (How Poland’s Martyred Jewish Bund Leader Saved My Life. An Evening of
Mystery and Revelation.).
Newborn poignantly interweaves his own personal story and adventures with the
amazing tale of the first man to bring the news of the Holocaust to the West,
along with an elegy to the lost world of the Jewish Shtetl.
Revolving around the author's thrilling discovery of
Polish Bund Spokesman Szmul Artur Zygielbojm’s lost artifacts, Dr. Newborn tells a miraculous, life affirming story
of how three seemingly disconnected lives magically intersected over time and
space. Newborn's discovery links him by surprise to Zygielbojm's surviving
niece, a 75 year-old champion ballroom dancer who "brings me under her
spell, inducing me to dance—not to mourn, but to celebrate Jewish
survival." (With Dramatic Visuals.)
4) FILM & DISCUSSION PROGRAM: “INGRID PITT: BEYOND THE FOREST” - FROM RESILIENT CHILD HOLOCAUST SURVIVOR
TO FASCINATING FILM STAR (Program
surrounding screening of Jud Newborn's Animated, Award-winning Short Film-
for Young Adults, Adults, Teacher. (Program can be adapted for 6th
grade & Middle School.) Few children younger than Anne Frank
survived the Holocaust to tell their stories. If they had been able, they
most likely would have done so in pictures rather than words.
In Dr. Newborn’s short film, designed by Two Time Academy Award
nominated animator Bill Plympton, and one of the first uses of animation for
the Holocaust, 10 year old Chinese animator Perry Chen reaches across time and
space to tell the story of Ingrid Pitt - renowned actress and celebrity,
especially in Great Britain. Ingrid endured the Holocaust with her mother in
the Stutthof concentration camp from ages 5 to 8. Making a miraculous escape,
she and her mother hid in a Partisan forest camp until an RAF plane
crashed landed nearby, allowing all to hear Winston Churchill announcing the
defeat of the Nazis.
This film also reminds us of the need to protect those most
vulnerable to suffering because of hate: children, wherever they live,
whatever their background. Narrated by Ingrid Pitt just before she died,
this film is her true legacy.
RESOURCE TO THE
MEDIA
“Speaking truth to power,” Dr. Newborn, a seasoned on-camera
expert, offers his lively and articulate perspectives for TV, radio. print and
internet media. Appearing as expert in major newspapers and from CNN, CBS News
& other networks to NPR’s “All Things Considered,” he discusses human
rights and the Holocaust as they relate to current events, including politics,
popular culture, sexual politics, film, the right to dissent, the protection of
democracy, and other current relevant controversies and breaking news.
CONTACT:
Tel. +
516-931-7796
Photo: Harvey Birnbaum
SELECT TESTIMONIALS
“The 75th Anniversary Edition of Jud Newborn’s book,
and his discoveries about Hans Scholl sexuality, obviously call out for a
Hollywood feature film. This will remind new generations how important it is to
speak out against hatred & injustice, wherever they may find it” - JOEL GREY, ACADEMY AWARD
WINNER, CABARET
“Jud Newborn's book is, alas, not just a
reminder that we must continue to ‘sing out danger’ & ‘ring out a warning.’
It carries an urgent & immediate message to all Americans as we face attempts
to divide us... to speak out now, clearly & defiantly. This book is much
more than history. It is a must-read tool for saving our own country.” – PETER YARROW (PETER, PAUL & MARY)
“Regrettably, it's time to remember the rise of Nazism
& what brave people did to stand up to it, only to find out they stood up
too late. It's all there in ‘Sophie Scholl and the White Rose.’ ” – ALAN ALDA & ARLENE ALDA
“The White Rose was the only German
resistance group to protest 'The Final Solution to the Jewish
Problem.' Sophie & Hans Scholl & their colleagues demonstrated
courage & conviction, morality & decency in a world bereft of
such qualities. They also gave lie to the myth that ‘we did not know' or
'nothing could be done' or 'protest was futile.' Their
deeds were exemplary then, & have only grown in significance.
Sadly they seem more urgent, more compelling at this moment in
time, three quarters of a century later.” – MICHAEL BERENBAUM, ORIGINAL OVERSEEING DIRECTOR
SHAPING THE U.S. HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL MUSEUM
"The White
Rose students still have the power to inspire people from all walks
of life to speak out against injustice, reminding us in these
troubled times that this is the American Way.” - NORMAN
LEAR
"Dr. Jud Newborn tells a riveting
story about resistance to the Nazis. The White Rose students were brave beyond
measure, and Dr. Newborn brings them alive again for us.” - JANE
ALEXANDER, CHAIR, NAT’L ENDOWMENT FOR THE ARTS, EMMY, TONY WINNER &, 4-TIME
ACADEMY AWARD NOMINEE
"The words of these German students
resound ever more strongly, helping us to fight anti-Semitism and
other hatreds today and, if need be, tomorrow. When people ask
what could have been done? How could Hitler have been
opposed? Give them ‘Sophie
Scholl and the White Rose. ‘ That will answer their question.” - PROF. DEBORAH LIPSTADT (AUTHOR, PORTRAYED BY
RACHEL WEISZ IN THE FILM “DENIAL”)
'Winning the return of Gustav Klimt's
'Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer' to its rightful Jewish owner was one
of the most profound events in my life. Another was the unforgettable
experience of attending a performance in Vienna of a chamber opera
about the White Rose... Their message is never to remain silent, but
to stand defiant, even to overwhelming power.'- E. RANDOL SCHOENBERG, ESQ; (PORTRAYED BY RYAN REYNOLDS OPPOSITE HELEN
MIRREN IN THE FILM “WOMAN IN GOLD”)
“A combination of erudition and panache…with a
tale that remains relevant in our own time. Jud Newborn’s performances,
book & new discoveries [could
make] the basis for a major motion picture. This story needs to be told
again & again.” – ANNETTE
INSDORF, DIR., COLUMBIA UNIV. GRADUATE FILM PROGRAM; AUTHOR, INDELIBLE SHADOWS: FILM AND THE HOLOCAUST
“Like my father, the shining
example of the White Rose reminds us of the ever-present need for
those who dare to speak out against injustice. Had it been available
while he was alive, I’m certain my father would have been eager to
take a role in a Hollywood film version based on this book.”
– JULIE GARFIELD, ACTOR;
DAUGHTER OF LEGENDARY BLACKLISTED ACTOR JOHN GARFIELD
”This book tells such an amazing true
story, & with such visual power, that now more than ever, it must
become the basis for a major Hollywood motion picture about these
incredibly courageous heroes.” – RICHARD BELZER, ACTOR (LAW & ORDER); SOCIAL RIGHTS ACTIVIST
“From its very first paragraph I found
this book so suspenseful that I couldn’t put it down. The
scene where Hans and Sophie Scholl drop hundreds of leaflets on the heads
of students below University of Munich’s atrium is indelibly imprinted in
my mind. Their daring, their conviction that all of humanity
has sacred brought to mind the very disturbing specter
today of neo-Nazi, extreme right movements rising in the USA and elsewhere.
All the more reason this book should be read and its story
brought to the awareness of the widest public.” — STEVE GUTTENBERG, ACTOR, PRODUCER
“You knocked the ball right out
of the park! This
is the largest
audience we’ve ever had for
our Zahm Lecture - the annual keynote for our academic
year - and you received a rare and rousing standing ovation to boot. Bravo! - PROF. KAREN EIFLER, UNIVERSITY OF PORTLAND. OR
White Rose
Exhibition, Cape Town. Photo: Richard
Freedman
Sophie Scholl is to young Germans what
Anne Frank is to young Jews.” – DR. RALF HORLEMANN, GERMANY’S CONSUL-GENERAL TO NEW ENGLAND
“I was expecting a typical scholarly lecture
– but this wasn’t just a lecture – it
was theater! Passionate and emotionally
genuine. Afterwards the entire audience jumped to their feet for an
extended, heartfelt ovation. Jud
Newborn’s program resonated long after he spoke at our annual summer
festival.” – ED
HERENDEEN FOUNDER CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN
THEATER FESTIVAL, WV
“We hit the jackpot with Jud
Newborn. Great substance & really great drama. One of the best Holocaust
& human rights presentations anyone will ever hear.” - EDIE NAVEH,
DIRECTOR, HOLOCAUST CENTER, PITTSBURGH
“
‘Cast off the cloak of indifference,’ as the White Rose leaflets
demanded, & stand up for humanity…. This 75th Anniversary edition
deserves to be read & read again, as we continue to face
evil around the world and at home, & strengthen ourselves to
confront it.” —RABBI
MEYER H. MAY, EXEC, DIRECTOR, THE SIMON WIESENTHAL CENTER, LOS
ANGELES
“None compare to Dr. Jud Newborn.
An inspired motivational speaker, Jud Newborn should not be missed.” – SUSAN PEIREZ, NY DIRECTOR, STEVEN SPIELBERG SHOAH
ORAL HISTORY FOUNDATION
“Lauded by NEWSWEEK & THE NY TIMES,
by the UN,& the HEBREW UNION COLLEGE, Dr. Jud Newborn speaks with dramatic
power & a deeply felt passion that leaves his audiences both moved &
exhilarated..” - MARTIN BORIS, LIFESTYLES MAGAZINE
“Within minutes of meeting Jud Newborn,
I recognized the remarkable, magnetic personality of this man. His gift of
communication has a truly electric energy about it. He transfixes his audience,
& it’s a rare quality I’ve seen in very few figures.” – THE AMAZING KRESKIN
"Jud Newborn
treats his presentations as though he were performing a theatrical monologue or
a poetry slam. All will be moved by his heartfelt approach."
– MARTY KALB, OHIO WESLEYAN UNIV.
“Unique & passion-filled. Riveting
presentation. The large room filled with lay people, scholars, Jews &
gentiles sat together in silent fascination, awaiting the story of JEWISH
ANTI-NAZI RESISTANCE to unfold. And
unfold it did, with all the drama of a Le Carre spy novel. Dr. Newborn was
complimented as one of the best speakers ever to grace our community.” - MELANIE
ZEITLER, JEWISH FED., SOUTH BEND, IN
“A stellar presentation!” - MAUREEN McNEIL, ANNE FRANK CENTER USA
“We were thrilled with your program at Episcopal
High, the leading such prep school in the nation. I will never forget your
holding the white rose at the end of the presentation, a symbol of hope and a beacon
for human response. May it be so.” - REV. FLEMING RUTLEDGE, AUTHOR & SPONSOR, EPISCOPAL
HIGH, ALEXANDRIA, VA
Photo: Zack Tanner, Arizona State Univ, Tempe, AZ
"One of the most powerful and
worthwhile presentations I have ever attended. I honestly could have listened
to him speak for hours! - ALEXIS STORCH. CENTER FOR HOLOCAUST & HUMANITY
EDUCATION, CINCINNATI, OH
“The overflowing room was spellbound as you
painted a portrait of courage more like a storyteller than a lecturer. The
lessons to be learned were invaluable, especially in light of current world
events & need for heroes to step forward.” - HEDY BERMAN HILLEL DIRECTOR, COLORADO STATE UNIV., FT. COLLINS
"Jud Newborn is a passionate narrator who tells
the story of the White Rose with a depth & texture that transports the
imagination. You get the feeling that you are hearing it from someone who
knew the members & witnessed first-hand their bravery.”
–DANIEL WILDESON, DIR., CENTER FOR HOLOCAUST
& GENOCIDE EDUCATION, ST CLOUD STATE UNIV, MN
“Delivered a public lecture to a
capacity crowd. We appreciate the
special effort he made to relate the topic to examples of resistance in South
Africa’s history of apart-heid. His use
of PowerPoint slides and music added to his most effective presentation. The audience was notably moved.” -
RICHARD FREEDMAN & MARLENE SILBERT, CAPE TOWN HOLOCAUST CENTRE, SA
Book Signing, Cinema Arts Centre, NY. 2006 - Photo: Kym
Newborn
“Invited to open our
Fall Season with two consecutive programs on the White Rose, Dr. Newborn packed
the Grand Gallery twice—something unprecedented for the NAC.” – ALDON JAMES, PRES,
NATIONAL ARTS CLUB, NY
"We were all charmed and impressed with your knowledge and
personable eloquence. Now we have to find another opportunity to invite you out
here again."—CHARLENE
BALDRIDGE & DIANE SINOR, OLD GLOBE THEATER, SAN DIEGO
“Dr. Jud Newborn captivated the minds and
hearts of 250 people. Remarkably, he
invested this poignant tale with hope and inspiration. Numerous individuals
approached me to compliment our choice of speaker and praise Dr. Newborn’s
ability to connect with a popular audience.” - RABBI BRUCE GINSBURG,
SONS OF ISRAEL, WOODMERE, NY
“Wide-ranging knowledge, masterful delivery. Related the story of unsung Jewish and Christian Holocaust heroes to today’s most pressing current events. Our ideal
scholar-in-residence.” - DR.
RACELLE WEIMAN, HEBREW UNION COLLEGE. CTR FOR HOLOCAUST ED., CINCINNATI, OH
"Your work is so impressive and important." - LIZ SMITH, NATIONAL COLUMNIST
“You probably couldn’t see from down
there, but not a single student was looking down, texting or browsing the
internet as usual. They eyes and attention were on you. They were
riveted.” - AUDIENCE MEMBER,
FOLLOW ZAHM LECTURE, UNIVERSITY OF PORTLAND, OR
“Wonderful
presentation. It was educational,
informative—and just beautifully executed.” - KARA MARITZER, MONTREAL FED.-CJA,
QUEBEC
“Dr. Jud Newborn’s riveting account on
JEWISH ANTI-NAZI RESISTANCE left me spellbound, enlightened and inspired. Truly
the most compelling and well-organized lecture I’ve heard in my 25 years in the
Wichita, Kansas community.” -
ELLY FITZIG, FOR JEWISH FED. &
NEWMAN COLLEGE, WICHITA KS
“Dynamic & stimulating. The audience was visibly moved by Dr.
Newborn’s remarkable account of JEWISH ANTI-NAZI RESISTANCE” - TAMARA SAVAGE, HOLOCAUST MUSEUM HOUSTON, TX
“Your speech was just
perfect for our leadership.”—RICHARD HEIDEMAN, INTERNATIONAL PRESIDENT, B’NAI B’RITH
“Dr. Jud Newborn focused the story of
JEWISH ANTI-NAZI RESISTANCE through a revelatory new lens, with an
emotionally-powerful delivery held the attention of the audience of students
and adults and left them inspired.” -
STEVEN SCHRIER, SUFFOLK CTR FOR THE HOLOCAUST, DIVERSITY & HUMAN
UNDERSTAND-ING, LI, NY
“Inspiring!” —LAUREN BLOOM, HILLEL, TUFTS UNIVERSITY
“Dr. Jud Newborn held the audience at the
UJA’s National Yom HaShoah Annual Commemoration rapt.” – UJA
NATIONAL OFFICE, NY”
“The evening was our Major Gifts event, the highest level of
giving in our community. Your
presentation was just what we had hoped for.
Our guests were totally absorbed.” —UJA/FEDERATION, CT
”If you, like me, are
yearning for something fresh, unique & profoundly moving, you’ll find it in
Dr Jud Newborn’s To Life! A
Magical Post-Modern Hasidic Tale Of The Holocaust.
He revitalized our audiences’ interest
with an astonishing program different from anything they (or I) had ever heard
and seen. He also holds the key to making his topics and their
contemporary lessons compelling for new generations.” - JUDE SCHANZER, DIRECTOR
OF PROGRAMMING, EAST MEADOW LIBRARY, LI, NY
“I am still dazzled by how
much I and my students learned when you were here.” —PROF. RANDALL AUSTIN, NEWMAN UNIVERSITY,
KS.
“Terrific! You bring amazing energy to
the stage and your story is filled with important themes.” - PROF. LAURETTA FREDERKING - DIR., SOCIAL JUSTICE
PROGRAM, U. OF PORTLAND, OR
“Jud Newborn’s storytelling ability
swept the audience along with him on a journey that kept everyone riveted and
fascinated. A beautiful and powerful experience for all!” - LISA STERN, JCC of the GREATER FIVE TOWNS, NY
|
 |
-->
