The White Rose Resists

by Amanda Barratt

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Sophie

  July 4, 1942

  “SHE WHAT?” TO MY surprise, it’s Kirk, not Hans, who rounds on me first.

  “She asked if I would consider helping her duplicate the leaflets of the White Rose.” I sit sideways on a slat-backed chair in Eickemeyer’s studio. Hans and Alex mailed the third leaflet last night, and we’re already drafting a fourth. Kirk stands next to the typewriter, hands fisted at his sides. His jaw tightens.

  Alex chuckles, shaking his head. “We’re making waves.” He blows a plume of pipe smoke into the air.

  “Annalise Brandt is the daughter of an SS officer.” Hans steeples his fingers atop the table. “And she wants to distribute leaflets? Just how does she plan to do that?”

  I shrug. “She didn’t say. She only asked if I’d be willing to incur the risk along with her. I told her I’d have to think about it.”

  “How did she find out about the leaflets?” Alex fingers his pipe.

  My stomach tightens. “I sent her one.”

  “What possessed you to do that?” Kirk’s voice rises.

  “Because she heard about what’s going on in Poland, the mass killings of partisans and innocent civilians. I wanted her to have answers. Isn’t that our aim? To give people answers? To open their eyes?”

  Kirk rakes a hand through his hair. “You have to discourage her. Tell her it’s a stupid idea, and she’d be better off forgetting about it.”

  “I won’t do that.” I bolt from my chair, taking a step toward Kirk. “To lie to keep her safe would mean going against everything we stand for. Annalise has just as much right to resistance as any of us.”

  “So what do you propose?” Hans levels his gaze on me.

  I swallow. “I propose she join us. She’s going to do it anyway. It will be safer with us, where we can control her activities.”

  “Absolutely not!” Kirk slams his fist on the table. Stray papers flutter to the floor. “I won’t have her involved.”

  “Hans?” I turn to my brother.

  “It’s dangerous enough as it is, Sophie. The more people who know, the more chances we have of getting caught. Having her involved would put all of us at risk.”

  “I can’t believe you’re saying this! You’re the ones who produced the leaflets. Who wrote the lines ‘we ask you to make as many copies of this sheet as possible and to redistribute it’? Now that someone wants to answer your call, you’re refusing her? Do you, or do you not, believe in what you’ve written?” I cross my arms.

  “You’re being needlessly obtuse.” Hans’s tone is firm. “Everyone we’ve invited to join us: Shurik, Kirk, you, Traute, even Christl, I’ve known for years. How long have you known this girl? A couple of weeks? A month? Who’s to say she isn’t her vater’s spy? Maybe he heard about the leaflets and asked his daughter to keep an eye out.”

  “She despises her vater. He cuts her down at every opportunity and wants to marry her off to a high-ranking officer to increase his own standing.”

  Kirk pales. A muscle twitches beneath his eye.

  “Even so, how can we be sure she’ll keep her word? Anyone can have a moment of passionate fanaticism. Who’s to say she won’t back down at the first setback, after we’ve already revealed our identity? All of us have been against the regime for a long time.” Hans pushes his chair back from the table and stands.

  I shake my head. “That’s not entirely true. Remember when you returned from the Nuremberg Rally? All of us expected you to be elated at the honor of being a flag bearer in a procession for the Führer. But you weren’t elated. You were disillusioned. The way Annalise is right now.”

  Hans gives a grudging nod. He blows out a sigh. “I’m sorry. But we’re not running a debate club. We’re not a haven for every passerby disillusioned by Hitler and his war. We’re risking our own lives as it is. I won’t gamble with someone else’s.”

  I press my lips together.

  “I’ll talk to her.” Kirk speaks up. “We’ve … spoken a few times. I’ll tell her Sophie confided in me about her plans to duplicate leaflets. I’ll convince her it isn’t a good idea.”

  “She won’t be that easily convinced.” I pick up a cigarette lying on the edge of the table, roll it between my fingers. “We spent a long time talking. She’s utterly serious when she says she wants to do something. If she doesn’t help us, she’ll get her own duplicating machine.”

  “I said I’d talk to her.” Kirk turns away. “We’re wasting time with this discussion. Let’s get back to doing what we came here to do.”

  I’ve never seen Kirk act this way. He’s always been kind and considerate, even when sleep-deprived and frustrated when stencils ripped or the duplicating machine stalled.

  A weighted silence fills the room. Hans resumes his seat, chair legs scraping against the floor as he pushes up to the typewriter. Kirk joins him on the other side. Alex gives me a sympathetic glance.

  “Want a light?” He gestures to my cigarette.

  I shake my head and shove the cigarette back into the packet. In many ways, Hans is right. Asking Annalise to join us would be risky. But we shouldn’t discourage her. If she was moved by our words, how many others might be? If Kirk tells her to choose safety and do nothing, isn’t that the very complacency we’re fighting against? Resistance means sacrifice. Who are we to discourage someone willing to pay the price?

  Annalise isn’t daft. Impetuous, perhaps, but not stupid. I know she’d follow orders and give her all. She may not fully know the measure of what that all may entail, but then, do any of us? Yet must we not act anyway? Now before more time is lost?

  “It’s only getting worse, Shurik.” I meet Alex’s gaze, voice soft. “Fritz wrote me. He says … he says his commander talks about killing all the Jews in Russia.”

  Alex pales, a comma of hair falling over his forehead. He’s wearing a loose-fitting blue shirt belted at the waist, brown trousers. With his simple clothes and tumbled hair, he looks like the Russian peasants he shares such an affinity with. “Oh, Sophie.” He shakes his head, voice hoarse. “Sometimes … I’m ashamed to call myself a German.”

  I nod, a sigh falling from my lips. I well understand such shame. “I know.”

  “Shall we continue?” Hans looks between the two of us from behind the typewriter. Kirk still wears a scowl and avoids my gaze.

  We move toward the table.

  “Would you read the next paragraph, Kirk?”

  Kirk clears his throat. In one hand, he holds the rough draft of our fourth leaflet. “‘In this struggle for the preservation of your highest good, I ask you, as a Christian: Is there any hesitation, any toying with conspiracies, any postponement of the decision in the hope that someone else will raise arms to defend you? Did not God Himself give you the strength and the courage to fight?’” He pauses. “‘We have to engage evil precisely where it is most powerful, and it is most powerful in the power of Hitler.’”

  The typewriter clacks as Hans jabs the keys.

  Kirk meets my gaze, face shadowed in the golden light. All traces of anger have left his eyes.

  In their place … is fear.

  Kirk

  July 5, 1942

  I have to try. If I don’t and something happens to her, I’ll never be able to forgive myself. It’s one thing for the rest of us to risk our lives—Hans, Alex, and the others. But Annalise is different. An SS officer’s daughter. An artist. A woman who wears her heart in her eyes.

  I have little hope this will go well. We’ve not spoken since that evening in the Englischer Garten. In that moment, I found myself astonished and ashamed by the stirring inside me. For me to fall for the daughter of a man at the center of the regime I’m fighting against seems the height of irony and impossibility. Nonetheless, I shouldn’t have let her walk away, and I need to apologize for my behavior.

  I’ll go to her as a friend. No more and no less.

  I’m about to raise my fist to knock, when the door to her apartment b
uilding opens. I step back. Annalise closes the door behind her, backing out, bumping a bicycle down the steps. She turns, fingers wrapped around the handlebars.

  For a long moment, we regard each other. A breeze stirs her loose curls, fluttering them around her face. Her eyes are guarded.

  “Hello.” I try for a smile as I descend the steps and stand near the front of the bicycle.

  “Hello.” Her tone is flat.

  “Nice bicycle.” I study the shiny metal, the new-looking tires. I haven’t seen a new bicycle in years.

  “My mutter sent it to me.”

  “Should save you a lot of money on streetcars.”

  She nods.

  I pause, shove my hand into my trouser pocket, looking from the bicycle back to her.

  She sighs. “Why are you here, Kirk?”

  I swallow. “To apologize. I acted like a cad, and I came to tell you I’m sorry.”

  Her eyes soften a fraction.

  “And I wanted to talk to you.”

  “What is there to say?” She lowers her voice, chin jutted forward. “You’re the son of a Confessing Church pastor. I’m the daughter of Standartenführer Brandt. In your eyes, we’ve nothing in common.”

  “There’s more to both of us than that. Walk with me?” I place my hand on the handlebars, brushing hers. She doesn’t pull away. “As friends. Can we not still be friends?”

  She presses her lips together, looking out into the street. I force myself not to linger on the curve of her jaw, the contours of her finely boned face.

  Just friends.

  She sighs. “I was about to take this for a ride, but I suppose it can wait. Give me a moment, and I’ll put it inside.” She hauls the bicycle back up the steps and into the apartment. I wait on the sidewalk, wondering if she’ll decide not to come out again at all.

  A few moments later, she emerges, shutting the door behind her.

  We move down the street, walking far enough apart that there’s no chance our shoulders might brush. We fill the silence with polite conversation about our various classes, the weather, her new bicycle. Those topics take us from her apartment to the Englischer Garten.

  “Do you mind?” I glance at her as we meander through the park. The slopes and paths are dotted sparsely with people—men in uniform with their sweethearts likely on their way to the Chinese Tower biergarten, a mutter with three children in tow. In the distance, the Kleinhesseloher Lake glitters in the setting sun.

  “Nein.” Our footsteps make crunching sounds on the gravel. “It’s a nice evening.”

  We move down a deserted path, sheltered on both sides by leafy elms. I slow my pace, watching her out of the corner of my eye. “There have been some leaflets circulating throughout the city. Leaflets of the White Rose. Have you heard of them?”

  She turns her head slowly, meeting my gaze. “In passing, perhaps.”

  “The stuff written in them is dangerous. I hope you didn’t linger on them long.”

  “Why ever would I?”

  Her voice and eyes remain cool and composed. For the first time it actually occurs to me that she might have the backbone to join us. I stop in the path. We’re alone, surrounded by trees and an ever-darkening sky. She faces me.

  “Sophie told me what you asked of her,” I say quietly.

  A trace of fear flashes through her eyes. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “She said you intend to distribute the leaflets of the White Rose. She spoke to me purely in confidence. I must advise you to use caution—”

  “Caution? That’s the last thing I expected to hear from you.” She arches a brow. “It’s well-known those of the Confessing Church are dissenters. Being a member is practically illegal.”

  “I’m not questioning what’s in the leaflets. I’m questioning your involvement with them. It’s dangerous to even consider taking part in their distribution, and if I have my way, I’d like to talk you out of it.”

  Silence hangs between us. I try to read her expression, but she averts her face from me.

  A serrated breath escapes her lips. “Then I’m sorry you’ve wasted your evening.”

  “What?”

  She hugs her arms over her chest, turning away. “We shouldn’t be having this conversation. I don’t want to discuss it.”

  “You’re still going to follow through with your plans?”

  She whirls to face me. Her eyes burn. “I refuse to do nothing.” Her voice is a choked whisper. “There. Have I answered your question? When I read one of the leaflets, it was like it spoke directly to me. People are dying, Kirk. Polish children. Jews whose only crime is their heritage. German boys who are forced to fight in a war of insanity. I’m through with turning my back on what our world is coming to. And if you think I’m a stupid woman who isn’t aware of what she’s getting herself into, well, maybe I am. But I have considered the consequences.”

  The way she looks at me … we need people like her. Those with enough passion to push aside the status quo and take risks for truth. Who her family is matters, but is it really enough to douse the fire inside of her?

  It scares me, the thought of her going forward alone.

  God, if I’m about to do something I’ll regret, show me, please.

  Hans will be angry if I tell him she’s joining us, but what if she proves herself beforehand? I take her measure. A girl with an innocent face in a schoolgirl blouse and skirt. So young. We all are, though we’ve been aged by the war. Altered by it.

  Maybe our youth makes us ideal to be at the forefront of resistance. Hitler always says young people are the future. We’ll be the future to show Germany a different one. It sounds idealistic, and maybe it is, but I’ve vowed to walk a different path, no matter where it will lead me. If Annalise is determined to walk that path too, why not alongside us?

  I draw in a deep breath.

  “I know the people who wrote the leaflets.”

  Her eyes widen. Otherwise, she makes no movement or sound.

  “Actually, I work with them.” I push out the words. Annalise sucks in a breath. A shudder passes through me. I’ve just committed one of the cardinal sins of resistance—revealing my identity.

  Might as well say the next part. “Perhaps you should join us.”

  “You’d have me?” Her voice is a whisper of disbelief.

  “It’s not that simple. The person in charge is careful about newcomers. For him to accept you …” We walk up the secluded path, back into the open parkland.

  “I’ll do anything.” She sounds pathetically eager. The way I sounded when Hans first told me his plans: “Just tell me what to do.”

  A man strides across the grass. Instinctively, I place my hand on her elbow. Anyone who saw us walking would think we’re a pair of sweethearts out for an evening stroll.

  I wait until he passes before turning to her. “We need paper, envelopes, and stamps. But we’re running short on funds.”

  Annalise doesn’t hesitate. “I can get those. Just give me a few days.”

  It’s happening so fast. I was supposed to use my powers of persuasion to convince her to forget the idea. Now, I’ve revealed our identities, told her our needs, as good as sent her on a mission. What if I’ve made a mistake? What if she endangers herself? What if—

  “Danke, Kirk,” Annalise’s soft voice pulls me from my thoughts.

  “For what?”

  “I know you’re probably wondering if you’ve made a mistake.” She gives a little smile, likely at my bewildered expression—how did she know what I was thinking? “I wish I could tell you with all certainty you haven’t, but we don’t know the future.” In the fading light, her features are pale and resolute. “But I do know one thing. You’ve given me a chance for action, and I’ll do all in my power not to let you down.”

  In her power? We leave the Englischer Garten, and I walk her home while dusk fades to darkness.

  So little of life is, Annalise.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

 
; Annalise

  July 6, 1942

  FOR THE FIRST TIME in weeks, I slept without nightmares. I wake, instantly alert, mind thrumming. Paper, envelopes, and stamps. I have twenty marks for emergencies stashed in a rolled up pair of stockings.

  This qualifies.

  Clad in my nightdress, the bedroom darkened by blackout curtains, I push past the few dresses hanging in the small armoire to the shelf in the back. My fingers brush the silk stockings—my only pair. I unroll them, and the cylinder of bills falls to the floor.

  I bend to pick it up, a bit breathless. Its papery weight resting in my palm, I take in the enormity of last night’s revelation.

  Kirk is one of the leaflet writers. I never would have imagined it. He seems so clean-cut, a handsome university student and physician in training. Not a man behind words that smack of subversion and echo with intrepid truth.

  If Kirk is one, who are the others?

  “Sophie told me what you asked of her.”

  I was so shocked, bent on maintaining my bluff, then furious he’d lecture me about caution, and then awed and thrilled when he revealed he knew the authors of the leaflets, I didn’t put two and two together.

  If Sophie told Kirk, then Sophie knows Kirk is involved. And if Sophie knows, could she be part of the group herself?

  Kirk. Sophie. Are there others?

  A chill seeps through my body. This information is dangerous. Doubtless, the Gestapo are aware of the leaflets and on the lookout for the perpetrators. If they’re traced in any way back to the authors, it could mean severe consequences. The weight of responsibility makes my legs tremble. I’m not the only one at stake here.

  A simple shopping trip for paper, envelopes, and stamps is no longer simple.

  “No fear,” I whisper, the words a command. “No fear.”

  Kirk

  July 10, 1942

  For almost a week, I’ve counted Annalise as one of us. Ever since she phoned me, voice breathless on the crackling line: “I’ve got a present for you. Come over to my place tonight and pick it up.” I did as instructed, and she invited me up to her apartment in the manner of an old friend, while her landlady shot us looks of matronly disapproval as we climbed the stairs. Splayed across Annalise’s table were stacks and stacks of pristine white paper, envelopes, and stamps. My breath hitched at the sheer quantity. “I went to four shops in different parts of town,” she said. “Will it do?”