The White Rose Resists

by Amanda Barratt

  “You’ve spoken Bavarian dialect before, I take it?”

  Annalise nods. “I’ve wanted to study at Ludwig Maximilian University since I was a girl. I had a cousin who was enrolled here in the mid-thirties.” A fond smile touches her lips. “She used to write me letters about the things she was learning, the friends she made. I saw her on holidays, and we always spoke Bavarian dialect together.”

  “So that’s why you chose LMU over the University of Berlin?”

  “I didn’t want to stay in Berlin. I thought if I could just have a little freedom … it would be enough.” She looks down at her hands, a wisp of a sigh falling from her lips.

  “Enough for what?”

  She glances up, into my eyes. “I’m not going to graduate from LMU, at least not with a degree. I’m only going to be here less than a year.”

  My brow furrows. Though a degree is the least of the reasons I came here to study, it makes no sense why someone would leave after only a year. “Are you transferring to a different university?”

  She shakes her head. “I’m … I’m getting married.”

  “Congratulations.” I say it quickly, by rote, not sure if it’s the right thing. No glow lights her eyes, no smile frames her mouth.

  “You don’t need to say that.” She fiddles with a button on her sweater. “It’s not what you think. When I approached my vater about the possibility of studying here, he refused, though I got high marks on my Abitur. My place was to complete labor service and find a husband. Good, strong offspring for the Reich, you know.” Her smile is brittle. “But I persisted, more than I’ve ever dared before. Eventually, we struck a bargain. I’d marry whom he wished after two semesters of university. I’m counting it a triumph to have made it this far.”

  For a moment, I stare at her. She’s to be married off, just like that, as if she were no more than a machine put into service for its rightful use.

  Annalise ducks her head, almost as if she’s ashamed. My heart goes out to her; how trapped she must feel.

  “Do you know your intended?”

  “Nein. Vater hasn’t decided. He’s on the eastern front, likely taking applications.” She gives a broken laugh. “Come to think of it, it sounds almost medieval. The bravest knight wins the prize of the king’s daughter.”

  “Have you thought about refusing? Telling him you won’t marry unless you meet someone you actually want to be with?”

  “You don’t know my vater, Sophie.” Annalise’s tone is maddeningly calm. I suddenly want to shake her. “We’ve made a bargain.”

  “Even when, by keeping it, it’s your future that will suffer the consequences?”

  She nods, looking regretful, yet resigned. “Ja. Even then.”

  We lapse into silence, gazes straight ahead. The air carries the scent of fresh-trimmed grass and the voices of students hurrying across the grounds. Annalise turns to me.

  “I’m sorry if you think badly of me now. I shouldn’t have brought it up. It’s just … I don’t know what to do.”

  I don’t have much patience for weak-willed people. I’ve never been one myself. But Annalise isn’t weak-willed; she’s simply trapped. As we all are. These days, we have little power over so many decisions, making those we do have a say in all the more important.

  “It’s not my place to judge you, Annalise.”

  “Danke.” She gives a grateful smile, but her gaze is still troubled.

  “But”—my voice lowers—“in the end, it comes down to the worth you ascribe to freedom. What price you’re willing to pay.”

  She presses her lips together as if letting the statement sink in. Then she straightens, putting on a smile. “What about you? Are you seeing anyone?”

  “I’m engaged to an officer in the Wehrmacht. I saw him a few days ago, for the first time in months.”

  I’m not accustomed to sharing personal details. In my years of labor service, I managed to get by without letting my comrades see my true self.

  Yet Annalise has been open with me. She sits quietly now, head tilted, not rushing to fill the silence. If she had, I would have left it at that.

  “Perhaps it would have been easier had we not seen each other at all. Then there would be no parting to look back on.”

  Annalise’s eyes radiate understanding. “It’s never easy to part from those we love.” Sunlight gilds the reddish strands of her hair. “We’re always thinking back, wondering how the time went by so fast, if we said the right things, marveling at how many details we’ve already forgotten.”

  Unexpected tightness rises in the back of my throat. Since Fritz left, I’ve had every one of those thoughts and so many more.

  I swallow, sucking in a shallow breath.

  This time, it’s Annalise who reaches out and places her hand over mine.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Annalise

  May 29, 1942

  “IN THE END, IT comes down to the worth you ascribe to freedom. What price you’re willing to pay.”

  I stare up at the ceiling, humid darkness coating the room. Shifting onto my side, I punch the flattened pillow with a sigh.

  If only I could chalk up my sleeplessness to the heat.

  I sit up and flick on the bedside lamp. Sheets tangled around my legs, I snatch my pillow and hug it close. Doubtless it’s after one in the morning.

  Since my conversation with Sophie, I’ve been unable to think of little else. I’ve never spoken about my bargain with Vater to anyone. It’s just been there—a marker at the end of one road pointing to another.

  Then comes Sophie Scholl. Right away, I sensed she was different, with her love of Heine and later her talk of women’s roles. Impulsively, I told her. Maybe because deep down I wanted to hear what she had to say.

  She questioned me, made me want to entertain the possibility of something different. To rip out the marker and chart a new path.

  I press my fingers into my temples with a groan. Here I am, with my grand independence, thinking myself so brave and bold to have defied Vater enough to attend university. Sophie’s words stripped away my independence, like a hard scrubbing revealing rotting wood beneath a polished veneer.

  An illusion. That’s all it’s been.

  Since the Führer came to power, the world has changed. Again and again, we’ve been told Germany can become a great nation again if every citizen gives their all. The “all” women are to give is their bodies to bear healthy Aryan children and their lives to running a home on the principles taught by the Führer. Vater often quotes from Hitler’s Nuremberg speeches when admonishing my brothers.

  “German youth are to be swift as greyhounds, tough as leather, and hard as Krupp steel.”

  No longer do I hear Vater’s voice, but the Führer’s. Sharp. Impassioned. Hypnotic.

  “Youth, glorious youth, is the future. A new generation of strong, proud young people.”

  “The catch of it is,” I whisper, “we’re not to be all of those things to better ourselves, but to be used for whatever purpose the Thousand-Year Reich proposes.” My hands fist around the pillowslip.

  It’s astonishing how we’ve all believed and fought for and trumpeted these ideals, thinking they’re for our good. When, in reality, they only serve to further the aims of those in power.

  Vater is no different. He wants me to marry and bear children. Why? Not for me, but for himself. So he can boast to his SS comrades about the fine baby boy his good Aryan daughter delivered.

  It’s wrong. The fight for supremacy, the talk of Germany becoming not just a great nation but “a nation to surpass all others.” Instinctively, I’ve known for a long time. But rarely have things fitted together in my mind with such eye-opening clarity.

  What price am I willing to pay for freedom? Not just for myself, but for the freedom of those around me also mired in the swamp of delusion?

  I rub a hand across my eyes and lean my forehead into my palms.

  I won’t do as Vater asks. I don’t know how I’ll manage it, but
I won’t marry the man he chooses. I won’t raise innocent children on a foundation of lies.

  Just thinking such defiance terrifies me deep down. I’m under no illusions as to what it will mean. If I take a stand, I’ll lose my family. They’re flawed, perhaps, but they’re still the only family I’ve ever had. Even now, I can see the pain in Mutter’s eyes, the confusion in the faces of my younger brothers. The condemnation in Vater’s.

  I lift my gaze, jaw firming.

  There may be days I regret my decision. Many of them, perhaps.

  But I won’t let myself be swept along on the tide of National Socialism another day, blindly clinging to the coattails of those supposedly wiser than I.

  I, Annalise Brandt, will be different.

  Voices and footsteps echo off the glass-domed ceiling of the Lichthof. In repose, the room must be a thing to behold—an airy atrium of marble flooded with sunlight by day, carpeted with shadows at dusk.

  Today the space is crowded with students and faculty hurrying to and from lectures.

  In the sea of bobbing heads and swinging satchels, I glimpse Sophie coming down the staircase, one hand trailing the banister.

  I weave through the crowd and reach Sophie just as she descends the last step. She stops at the bottom of the staircase.

  “Grüß Gott,” I whisper, conscious of the students around us.

  One corner of her mouth tilts upward. “Grüß Gott.”

  I swallow, fingers growing damp around the handle of my satchel. “Sophie … can I, can we talk?”

  She nods, giving me a curious look. “Of course.”

  We make our way through the crowd to the front doors. Outside, the air is sticky and a faint drizzle mists from the sky, the clouds bulging with unspent rain. Without speaking, we walk, as if by one consent, toward the bench we occupied yesterday.

  We sit, the moist metal chilling my legs through my light skirt. I tuck my hair behind my ear. Sophie sits, ankles crossed, wordless.

  I look down at my clasped fingers, gathering my thoughts. Then raise my gaze to hers.

  “You’re right, you know.” My voice is soft. “My vater has been commanding, ever since I can remember. Becoming involved in National Socialism only served to hone his belief in power. It became his sole purpose. That and molding his offspring into the perfect image of a National Socialist family. Including my marriage to some rising officer colleague of his.” I pause.

  Sophie’s expression says little about her feelings, her forehead creased in that peculiar frown. Misting rain sprinkles down, dampening our clothes.

  Courage gaining, I continue. “I don’t want it. Have never wanted any of it. It’s like you said. What worth do you ascribe to freedom?”

  “Freedom,” she whispers, tilting her face toward the rain, eyes closed. “What a word.”

  “What you said yesterday made me think. I thought about it all last night, and I’m not going to do what my vater wants.” The words rush over each other, coming fast from my lips.

  “What will you do?” Sophie glances up as a trio of brown-uniformed students march past. They turn smartly down the path, tempo unaltered by the weather.

  “I don’t know.” I sigh. “Making a determination is one thing. Fulfilling it, another matter altogether. But I’ll stay my course.”

  For a long moment, Sophie looks lost in thought. “You should meet my brother and his friends. We’re planning a little party for Sunday, the seventh. You ought to come. You’d enjoy getting to know them.”

  “Would my vater?” I ask, somewhat mischievously.

  “I don’t think so.” Sophie grins.

  The camaraderie lauded in the BDM is just an attempt to keep everyone marching in tandem. Of course, friendships arose, but never for me. The thought of a group who challenges and questions and chooses their own path sends excitement swirling through me. “Then I’ll be there.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  Kirk

  June 7, 1942

  “WE MISSED YOU AT church, Son.” Vater rests his warm hand on my shoulder. I lean against the entrance to the dining room. The round table is set with Mutter’s linen tablecloth and scalloped china. A yawn fights to escape. Blast it all, I’m tired. Hans, Alex, and I didn’t break up until after midnight. Our talk of leaflets and plans for duplication had the effect of a strong cup of kaffee. The fatigue only hit when I got back to my apartment. As a result, I’d overslept and broken my promise to join my family at church.

  I look up, meeting his gaze. His eyes are the same brownish-gold as mine, the fine creases wrinkling the corners evidence of his fifty-eight years. My parents married late, and I followed two years after their wedding day, to the date. I’ve grown up an only child, the sole son of Paul and Emilie Hoffmann.

  “I’m sorry.” I blink and yawn, covering my mouth with my closed fist. “I was out late last night.” I straighten my shoulders. “I promise to try harder to make it next time.”

  “With friends, were you?”

  My vater is one of the few Confessing Church pastors remaining—a dwindling group of dissidents who refuse to bend to Reich Church policies. A crucifix, rather than a portrait of Hitler hangs on the chapel wall, a Bible, not a copy of Mein Kampf, rests on the altar in the run-down building Vater rents for services. Vater’s rate of attendance declines, rather than increases, pews emptying as young men leave for the front and many parishioners bow to the pressure and quit attending altogether.

  He’s already putting himself in enough danger, what with all that’s happened to Pastor Niemöller, imprisoned in Dachau for his outspoken protests and other so-called treasonous activities. And Niemöller isn’t the only Confessing Church pastor serving a sentence. Vater must not discover our leaflet operation.

  Even if it means I must lower myself in his opinion.

  “Ja. With friends.” It’s all I will tell him. “You know how it is. Roll call at the barracks, classes, shifts at the hospital. Sometimes we just need an evening off.”

  Vater looks at me soberly. In a much-mended suit, gazing down at me from his slightly stooped height, he’s again the pastor-parent I rebelled against for so many years. If only I hadn’t wasted so much time. “As long as they’re the right kind of friends, Kirk. These days one can’t be too careful.”

  “Oh, they are. Don’t worry about that.” I try for a confident grin.

  Mutter bustles into the dining room, apron wrapped around her trim waist, a steaming platter in both hands.

  “Smells amazing.” I move to help with the platter, inhaling the tantalizing scents of beef and cabbage. My mouth waters. Sunday dinner at the Hoffmann house is an occasion, even with the increase in rationing that took effect this spring. Usually, we have guests, either parishioners or the needy Vater brings in off the street—whoever needs a warm meal and a listening ear. Today it’s just the three of us.

  We slide into our usual seats—Vater at the head, Mutter on his right, me on the left. My stomach rumbles at the sight of the beef, a small slab perhaps, but thick and juicy on its bed of cabbage. Sunlight streams through the spotless windows, the blackout curtains drawn back. Little rays dance across the table, catching the reflection of the silverware.

  We bow our heads.

  “Merciful God, we thank You for the bounty before us and for Your many acts of provision. We ask that You surround all those suffering during this time of war with Your comfort. Be with those who are in prisons or camps and with Pastor Niemöller and his family. Watch over the Jews, Lord, Your chosen people. Be with the men fighting on the front, and the families they have left behind. Put an end to this terrible war and bring repentance and peace to the inhabitants of our land. Guide me and my wife. Guide my son, Kirk, in all his ways. He needs Your strength, Lord.”

  I sneak a glance up. Vater’s graying head is bent, his hand wrapped around Mutter’s. Her eyes are closed, her lips moving in silent agreement. It’s not the first time I’ve been included in family prayers. In adolescence, I usually ignored Vater’s words
and swung my legs, counting the minutes until it was over.

  Today my throat tightens. If Vater only knew the truth. How I need the strength that comes from God, now more than ever.

  Vater’s closing words are lost in my musings, and I echo my amen half a beat later than the others. Neither of my parents seem to notice as Mutter fills our plates with cabbage and beef, knives clinking against china.

  Mutter passes me my plate and settles into her seat. “How are things at the barracks?”

  I chew slowly, savoring the seasoned meat, then lower my fork. “The usual. Drilling and speeches, always threatening us with the front.”

  Vater wipes his mouth with a napkin. “Is there any substance to what they’re saying?”

  I shrug. “Some. Hans thinks we’ll be shipped to the eastern front after the summer semester. But nothing’s definite yet.” We’ve all seen prior service. Hans and I in France as medics, and Alex in Austria, Czechoslovakia, and France. None of us are eager to be sent out again, but we accept it as a probable eventuality.

  Mutter’s delicate brow creases, but she says nothing.

  I change the subject, another leftover habit from my rebellious days. “I’m going to a party tonight. Hans’s sister Sophie is hosting a get-together at Hans’s apartment. You’d like Sophie, Vater. She’s a biology student at the university.”

  “Is she single?” Mutter’s eyes light with a teasing spark.

  I smile, shaking my head. “Engaged to an officer on the eastern front.”

  “How unfortunate.” Mutter sets down her water glass.

  “Besides, even if she were, I don’t have time for that right now. Hans struggles to find enough hours to spend with Traute. You’ll have to be content with a bachelor for a son, Mutter. For now, at any rate.” I grin. “At least since the Wehrmacht has taught me to mend, you no longer need to worry about patching my clothes.”

  “There’s a lot more to finding a good woman than simply someone to do your mending.” Vater places his hand atop Mutter’s. They share a warm smile. “Friendship. Unity of mind. Love.” He chuckles. “This fine beef and cabbage.”