Life During The Holocaust: Sophie Scholl

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During the Holocaust, most people didn’t take it upon themselves to stand up for others. Helping others just wasn’t on most people’s minds while this was taking place. It is understandable that the people fighting for their lives didn’t think about others, but why didn’t the German’s that were living happy lives put any thought into this? This is because they were being lied to, and Sophie Scholl wanted to doing something about it. Sophie Scholl is the epitome of a courageous young woman who is not afraid to be more than a bystander.
Ms. Scholl was born on May 9, 1921 in Ingersheim, Germany. She grew up with a loving, Catholic family that had two parents and four siblings. Her siblings were Inge, Hans, Elisabeth, and Werner Scholl. Sophie …show more content…

This attitude almost cost her a high school graduation.(Newborn/Dumbach 10) She loved school, but she read between the lines and started to figure out the lies being taught. She went to a German school, so all of the books were making the Jews out to be monsters. She never really believed that Jews were monsters. Though she had joined the Union of German Girls, she did not want to support Hitler anymore. She loved theology and philosophy, just like her brother, Hans.(Axelrod)The Holocaust started getting worse around 1940. They required all Aryan youths to join the Hitler Youth groups. Sophie started teaching kindergarten to try and avoid having to work for the state and having to join the Nazi groups. When she was younger, she didn’t mind joining the groups. She liked the groups more for the fellowship and friends than the politics. She got to go and explore the outdoors, so she didn’t even think to look into what she was supporting. Hans really did believe the Nazi’s and supported everything that they let him know about.
They both realized that the Nazi’s were liars. That they were covering up all of the horrific crimes that were being committed. Up until 1941, Hitler hadn’t started the mass murders of the Jews. He wanted there to be only one race that was superior to all the others. All of the people had to have blonde hair and blue eyes. The thing was, Hitler was out there murdering people who didn’t …show more content…

This priest never said anything particularly against Hitler, but he would make subtle gestures and remarks that were something to think about. “The priest asked, ‘Is courage what Aristotle described: living for your killing instincts, joy in fight and killing?’ He said, ‘You can only be courageous if you fight for a value. And what are the values here?”(Axelrod 57) This priest was extremely sly with how he presented the information to the students. He made sure not to get himself or any others in trouble at the moment. “Although the Nazis falsely blames all of Germany’s problems on its Jewish population, Hans and his friends, Mueller says, knew that ‘all human beings are created by God. That was very clear for us... If you have this kind of influence, you get other eyes. You saw things that others didn’t see because they didn’t want to open their eyes.’”(Axelrod 59) The people in this group had real courage. They knew that standing up for the Jews and resisting the Nazis would cost them their lives at some point, but they did it anyway. They were not content with being

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