Two Christian anti-Nazi leaders of the White Rose resistance movement who were beheaded by the Nazis in 1943 will be remembered this Friday by American and European Jewish and Christian leaders who will gather at the Perlacher cemetery near Munich for a memorial service.
The American Jewish Congress, in announcing the planned memorial service at the graves of the two German resistance leaders, Hans Scholl and his sister Sophie, also announced that a memorial service will be held the same day at the site of the Dachau concentration camp, described at a news conference here today “as the granddaddy of all the concentration camps in Europe.”
The communal services are an outgrowth of opposition to the planned visit Sunday to a German military cemetery in Bitburg, West Germany by President Reagan that has aroused intense criticism from Jewish organizations and veterans groups. According to the AJCongress, Reagan’s planned visit has resulted in the “diversion of public attention from the true significance” of the anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany and the liberation of the Nazi death camps.
“These are occasions to pledge that the evil unleashed by Hitler will never be forgotten and will never be allowed to be repeated, “Theodore Mann, AJCongress president said. “To remember the many thousands of Americans whose lives were lost in the war; to remember the genocide of six million European Jews and the murder of five million Christians, and to honor the memories of those under the control of the Nazis, including the Germans, who were martyred in their attempts to defeat Nazism.”
STRENGTH OF WHITE ROSE MOVEMENT LEADERS
Hans Scholl, 25, and 22-year-old Sophie and 24-year-old Christoph Probsp, were tried by a Nazi “people’s court” in Munich for their involvement in the distribution of leaflets of the White Rose movement at the University of Munich and in cities in Germany and Austria.
After their trial, on February 22, 1943, all three were executed by guillotine. Several months later three others who had joined them in the same activities, Willie Graf, Kurt Huber and Alexander Schmorell, were also tried, convicted, and executed. After their death, a Hamburg group of the White Rose emerged to continue the work of the Scholls and their co-workers. The leaders of the Hamburg group were later tried, convicted and executed.
“It is in order to focus attention on symbols of resistance to evil — Hans Scholl and Sophie Scholl — and on symbols of the terrible consequences of evil — the death camps — that these gatherings will be held, “Mann said.
Among the Jewish groups that have endorsed the memorial service are: World Jewish Congress, United Jewish Appeal of Greater New York, Canadian Jewish Congress, American Jewish Committee, Children of Survivors of the Holocaust, Jewish Labor Committee and Emunah Women.
Other groups include the United Auto Workers Local 259 and District 65, Teamsters Local 840, A. Philip Randolph Institute, The Coalition of Black Trade Unionists, and the Lutheran Council in the USA.
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