In 1943, German police rounded up several members of the so-called White Rose group. They were university students in Munich who printed and clandestinely distributed flyers protesting Hitler's regime and the war. In addition to the students, led by Hans and Sophie Scholl, a university professor (Kurt Huber) was also arrested. Within days, Hans and Sophie Scholl and Christoph Probst were tried and convicted in the notorious People's Court presided over by Judge Roland Freisler. They were executed by guillotine the same day in Munich's Stadelheim Prison and went to their deaths with courage and dignity. In the weeks and months ahead, others, including Huber, were also executed. Along with those who attempted to kill Hitler on July 20, 1944, the members of the White Rose group are honored as heroes by Germany today.
This week, the last surviving member of the White Rose group, Traute Lafrenz, died in South Carolina at the age of 103. She was in a German prison at the end of the war but was liberated by American troops.
The blow article in NDR (Germany) is translated by Fousesquawk.
Last survivor of the "White Rose": Traute Lafrenz is dead
March 9, 2023 21:12
The last resistance fighter of the "White Rose" group is dead. Traute Lafrenz, born in Hamburg, according to her son, died on March 6 at the age of 103 near Charleston, South Carolina (USA).
The group around the siblings, Hans and Sophie Scholl, called for resistance against the National Socialist dictatorship and the end of the Second World War. "She was a contributor, but sought no hero status; she acted because she considered it important and necessary," said the chairperson of the White Rose Foundation, Hildegard Kronawitter, on Thursday to the Deutsche Press Agentur (German Press Agency). Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) spoke on Twitter about the sad news. He added, "It was a great fortune for us that she survived and could report so vividly on the resistance."
Steinmeier: Lafrenz listened to the voice of her conscience.
Four years ago, Traute Lafrenz was awarded the Federal Merit Cross. "Traute Lafrenz was one of the few who, in the face of the National Socialist crimes, had the courage to listen to the voice of her conscience and rebel against the dictatorship and the genocide of the Jews," Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier said in tribute to her resistance to the National Socialist dictatorship at the time.
Resistance in the time of National Socialism
Traute Lafrenz was born on May 3, 1919, in Hamburg as the youngest of three daughters of a financial officer and a housewife. She went to Munich in 1941 to study, where she met Hans Scholl and had a romantic relationship with him. Traute Lafrentz took part in several talks and discussions with the "White Rose" resistance group. Together with Sophie Scholl, she organized papers and envelopes for the distribution of leaflets. In November 1942, she carried the third leaflet of the "White Rose" to Hamburg.
The arrest of Hans and Sophie Scholl
On February 18, 1943, Hans and Sophie Scholl were arrested. "Actually, we intended to go to Ulm for the weekend. Then Hans and Sophie came, and I said, "You are already drunk," Lafrenz recalled a few years ago in the documentary, "The Resisters". Sophie Scholl said that the ski boots were still in her apartment. "If they aren't here in the afternoon, I should just get them." "That is the last time I spoke with Sophie."
Traute Lafrenz also goes to jail
After the deaths of the Scholls, Traute Lafrenz was also arrested in March 1943. In front of the so-called People's Court, she was insulted by the notorious judge Roland Freisler. After a brief release, she was again arrested in 1944. "We were then taken to our interrogator, and he laid out a transcript of about 50 pages, all of what I had said and done," she recalled in the documentary. "It was all correct: What I had heard on the radio, what banned books I had read."
Liberation by American troops
She served renewed sentences in various prisons, among others, in the Fuhlsbuettel prison in Hamburg. "There were some girls who could sing very well. And so we sang, 'Wait my soul, wait for the Lord," said Lafrenz. These peaceful moments provided strength for the interrogations," In 1945 she was freed from a Bayreuth prison by advancing American troops.
Traute Lafrenz message: "Be awake"
Two years later, she went to the USA, finished her medical studies, and married an eye doctor, Vernon Page. With him, she had four children. In 2009, she returned again to Hamburg. The Jewish community in the city awarded her the Herbert Weichmann Medal. "A great honor for me here in my hometown, in which I walked the streets for twenty years. And there is no longer anybody here who knew me then," she says. In her old school, she comes to speak with students. Asked what she thinks about extreme right movements and protests, she says, "You must be vigilant and alert. Be awake."
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