Sophie still meets with other girls from BDM, just like how Hans still attends Hitler Youth. But now, she doesn’t believe that the Nazis could turn Germany better and stronger.
Hans usually goes hiking with his older boy group. They wear Hitler Youth’s uniform, but soon everything is back to how it was. They sing what they want to and say what they think.
“But the old boy groups are forbidden! Don’t you have any fear?” Sophie asked him a few days later.
“Ah, don’t worry too much! We’re all in Hitler Youth. They won’t say anything about that.”
But he made a terrible mistake. One morning, at six o’clock, three men were standing in front of the door. “Gestapo!” They explained quickly and came into the house.
“Does Hans Scholl live here?” Mother didn’t answer. But Hans heard the men and came out of his room. “That’s me. What’s the matter?”
“Hail Hitler! We have to take you!”
“But…Why?”
The men didn’t answer. “Don’t fuss. Go, go, change and go with us!” Five minutes later they drove away with Hans.
Sophie is speechless. Mother is crying. Father is making a call.
“What? A big operation?…Ah, understood. Thank you.”
“A big operation against the old boy groups. They arrested young men all across Germany. Not so bad, I think.”
But Hans was imprisoned for a long time. Six months. Sophie wasn’t allowed to visit him. “That’s not for you, little baby”, her mother told her. She was allowed to see her son once a week.
When Hans came home, he no longer went to Hitler Youth. And he seldom went wandering with his friends. And then it was only two or three together. “We have to be careful”, he said.
Sometimes flyers could be found in the postbox.
“Hitler is terrorizing our country!” or “The Nazis must go! They are ruining our country!” Father read these leaflets and threw them in the fireplace.
“Obviously we all know that..and?”
“Dad, what should we do?” Sophie asked.
“I don’t know”, is the answer.
In school they didn’t say what they thought anymore.
In history classes they learned why Germany is strong and why Jews are evil.
In German, that Jews are decadent authors.
In French, that Frenchmen have no culture whatsoever.
Now there is a new subject: philosophy of life. There, Sophie learned how to recognize Jews and that disabled people don’t deserve to live. Should she discuss those with her Nazi teacher? There’s no purpose. She didn’t say anything.
Mr Brenzel didn’t come back. Then war came. The number of men seen in the streets are always decreasing. The Germans invaded Poland, they marched across the streets of Paris and Kopenhagen. Many Germans find the victories of German troops amazing.
Sophie still didn’t say anything. She read a lot. Classics. They are not Nazi-related, but also not forbidden.
Church classics. Because the churches today were arranged by the Nazis. She loved Augustinus best.
One afternoon, mom had a visitor.
It’s an old friend of hers. She seldom comes, because she is working in another city, in a clinic for children with mental disorders.
Sophie likes her a lot. But today, she differed from the past.
The two women didn’t go on when Sophie entered the room. And today, mom didn’t want Sophie to sit next to her.
“Don’t you have to finish your homework, Sophie?” She asked.
“No, I already did them.”
“Then please go to the grocery shop. We need bread and milk!”
“I can do that later!”
“Sophie!”
“Ok. I’m going.”
But she stood behind the door. What are they doing?
“And you’ll think, the children…”She heard mom say.
“That’s for sure. They killed them with gas.”
Sophie heard mom’s friend cry.
“All dead. They just murdered them! This…”
Sophie already understood. She also heard about it in school.
“Mongoloid! Schizophrenia! Feeble-minded! They don’t have the right to live under the German ethnic! And when they have children, they must go!” Go?
A few days later, another flyer is in the postbox.
It’s different from the others. It’s a sermon.
Bernhard von Galen, the bishop of Münster, is saying something regarding to the action of Nazis. The actions against the disabled.
“For months, people were taking patients from us in buses. They never came back. After a bit, the family says that the patient is dead, suddenly died. This only means one thing: these patients, these young and olds were murdered! Can a christian accept these things? The government shouldn’t be allowed to do this kind of thing!”
“Doesn’t he have any fear?” Sophie asked.
“Of course, but he’s a bishop, Nazis can’t do a lot about that!”
“And why doesn’t other bishops say anything?”
“Not all of them are like the lion from Münster。”
“But he’s right: no christians can accept what the Nazis are doing.”