Would you have had the courage?

Very good question. I guess none of us will know the answer for sure unless we find ourselves in the same woeful situation (hopefully never!) yet I don't think most people could do what she did, Just some people with a very deep and strong conviction in their beliefs and values might be able to do it.
I admire her.

Money is better than poverty, if only for financial reasons.

I would like to say that I would, but I honestly cannot say.

Sophie took full responsibility and probibly would have lived if she cooperated.

At any rate I did weep for Sophie.

This was a beautiful film.

Honestly? I doubt it. I think I'd be more of a "live to fight another day" type.

Full disclosure: My family is Jewish. My sister is a Rabbi. She and I were discussing the Shoah, and the brave non-Jews who were persecuted or did righteous things. I asked her what she would have done - hide what we are? (we're very "Aryan" looking); or would you have continued being openly Jewish and letting the chips fall where they would? She states she would not have hidden what/who she was. I said I would do anything to stay alive, including lying about what/who I was. And, then I felt ashamed. She said I shouldn't feel ashamed. Many hid so that they could survive to tell the tale.

There is no wrong or right answer in these situations. Each would act according to his/her own situation and values. For me, life is the most sacred thing; so I would go to any lengths to protect it.



Quality of life improves enormously when we can all cheerfully abuse each other.

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I have courage but i'm not stupid. Sophie died becos she was a moron...end of story. But then again...he most likely would been gangraped by soviet soldiers and then maybe killed.

So dying by guillotine was maybe faster way to die.

There are a lot of people who know it's the right thing to do, and perhaps tell they would, but just wouldn't cause they hadn't got the guts.
And I don't necessarily mean that they'd be afraid of the execution (though of course a lot'd be), but, I dare say, even more of the social exclusion. There'd be a hell lot of people who know what's right and who, as strangers, 'd say they'd do, but in the situation wouldn't just because they don't want to loose what they have. Humans are highly social. If they grow up in peace and equality, that is a fine trait with outweighting benefits, but in a totaliterian regime it gets a dark side. Most of you, I dare say, would not want to destroy the shallow "niceness", would not want to loose your neighbourhood and society, and would, even if you knew what's going on, never ever admit it as long as you don't need to, as long as it doesn't happen to you, your family or close friends. And that's the point in most of the resistance in the Nazi regime.
Most people wouldn't open their eyes as long as it's more comfortable to keep them closeded and pretend to be asleep. Get what I mean?

I don't say this applies to all humans. Nor do I claim that, if it does, it is particulary social (though it is definately the shadow side of human social behaviour) in the sense that people who don't conform are antisocial in any way.
In fact, what I am trying to say is that though almost all people know it's wrong, most wouldn't resist, for reasons I just mentioned.

BUT, I'm dead sure they would not apply to me.
Not because I'm better or worse, more social or less social, more clever or less clever, more individual or less individual. I simply am no conformist, in fact I'm anti-conformist in any way.
That not only means that I'd have resisted. That also means that I would have never fit in any kind of totaliterian regime and that I'd be persecuted, that I'd be outcast, that it wouldn't need to hit my friends or family because it would somehow hit me, that I'd never be able to close my eyes anyway.


You know, my paternal great-grand-father was putting up resistence (for example, he was part of a group who rescued some bridge). Now you might say that "I'm clinging to my "good" ancestors" or that I'd simply admire him, but neither is the case.
And this would seem plausible to you, since some lines of my family were indeed, more or less passively, supporting Hitler. But I don't try to judge now, I don't try to say which ancestor of me is good or better, I just know myself better than you do.
Trust me, there are a lot of people who'd do that (kling to their "good ancestors"), but I'm not one of them.
My great-grandpa was no angel. He was a gambler and drunkyard, was known for a rather bad temper, but he also was interested in philosophy, psychology and art. He was one of these restless, egocentric, rebellious persons who, even if they care for a close friend or two, simply don't care for society as a whole.
And as such, it isn't bragging but rather honest when I admit I'm somehow one of them.
And I'm a very social person. I'm a pensively person who can't stand any form of cruelty or inequality. I spend most of my thoughts to topics such as world poverty, supression of ethnical minorities, destruction of nature and so on.
But this is not the reason I'd put up resistance. Because if it was, anyone in any injustice would.
And that is my point: anyone is individualist. Anyone hates injustice. Anyone wants world peace. Anyone is, somewhere deep down in heart, also totally good.
But they are willing to supress it in order to conform to social norms.
That I wouldn't (and I really know I wouldn't) conform has nothing to do with good or evil, but with the fact that I AM simply not normal and will never BE conforming to social norms.
This doesn't mean "Oh, I so'd want to be normal, I'd do anything to fit in I just can't" nor "Normality sucks, because I simply chose to be different". No. I couldn't even tell you what is "unnormal" on me because nothing really is (I look normal, I'm not handicapped in any way, I'm no minority in the broader sense), I just AM. It just means: "Normality is not an option so I'll simply live according my own values and dreams, and I better make good use of the time that I can live that way since I know that even in a free society as now, any moment somebody'll loose his head and kill me because I'm simply insufferable." Neither more nor less.

Does anything I just wrote make any sense to you?




I`m not talking to myself- myself just won`t stop talking to I!

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I hope to visit their grave this summer, and yes I will cry, having just written a string quartet in her honor- she's been on my mind for the past year. I have asked myself a million times whether I could be as brave as them. I think knowing their story gives a person a little more belief in themselves that they (I) might have the courage, if just thinking about her. What heroes they were. The honor and respect and love cannot be overstated for these incredibly courageous young people. Their brave souls will never ever die, and truly they did not die in vain.