13 July

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I was pleasantly surprised to see this this morning on Instagram. July 13, 1943, was the date on which Alexander Schmorell and Professor Kurt Huber were executed for their parts in the resistance group called the “White Rose”.

It’s quite interesting; when I first heard of Alexander Schmorell, he wasn’t a saint, and I don’t know that most people had heard of him. I joined OrthodoxWiki very early on because the priest who started the site wanted me to write an article about him, and so I eventually did. At some point thereafter, one of the sysops even questioned whether it was appropriate that the article was on OrthodoxWiki since he didn’t feel that merely an interesting story of an Orthodox Christian fit the scope of the project.

These days, I’m beginning to not be as surprised that people, at least in the Orthodox world, have heard of Alexander Schmorell. The OrthodoxWiki article did a lot. Also, the fact that while his siblings were near the end of their lives, they started talking about him more. Up until 1999 or 2000, there was no biography of him alone; now different biographies have been written in Russian, German, and English.

The icon in the instagram picture above is something special, too. It’s by the hand of Paul Drozdowski, and it’s the first icon that I know of that was of St. Alexander alone. It was done before his glorification as a saint, hence the lack of a nimbus and the title “passion bearer”, but it was already known at this time that he would be, in the near future, counted among the saints. I have a copy that Paul made here in my living room – it’s the only commissioned icon that I have – but it’s particularly special to me because due to a certain “coincidence” on LiveJournal, I was able to help a little in its creation.

It’s been eighty years. When I was first finding information about the White Rose back in Germany, I was pretty certain that Alexander and Sophie, at the very least, would have still been alive at that point. I even went to Orenburg, Russia to celebrate what would have been his 85th birthday. At some point, I lost that sense, because we just don’t have a lot of people who make it to 105. Also, the people who were alive 20 years ago who knew him are all gone now, including his (half-)siblings and Nikolai Hamazaspian, who I got to see (and even talk to) personally. Matushka Elena Perekrestov, through another “coincidence”, got to meet another one of his close friends who happened to end up out in California, but I think she entered the eternal life, at over 100, on the first day of 2021.

We people walk the earth such a short time, but we have the choice whether to stand up for the Truth or not. I was talking to a good friend last night over the computer; he isn’t particularly religious, but I think his soul thirsts for some connection to God. Out of his mouth came the sentiment that he’s coming to the conclusion that “God really does represent the ultimate Truth”. Never mind that I’ve been trying to convince him of this for over half my life, but it’s an important thing to remember nonetheless.

It’s funny, because back when I started with the White Rose, I was twenty, and even Sophie Scholl was older than I. Through my years in Germany, I kind of rolled through the ages of the group; Christoph, 23; Hans 24, Willi and Alex, 25.

And then there’s Professor Kurt Huber, who, at 49, was the oldest of the group, and this year, especially, I’ve come to the realization that it won’t be many more years (God willing) before I’m his age as well. And… I think his story also gets shortchanged quite a bit. Mind you, he wasn’t so much part of the group the way the other five were – he was established with a career and wife and children, and though he did participate in “reading evenings” with members of the White Rose on occasion, in a sense, he still belonged to a different world.

What strikes me now is how the man struggled, and struggled his entire life. He had physical disabilities, and some of that is apparent in photographs. One of the things affected his speech, but he became a university professor anyway. He was one of the most learned experts in his field, but he struggled to find a job in academia because it became apparent that he would not bend what he knew as an expert to the will of a government which demanded that all expertise point in one direction. He was smart enough to be able to give lectures that made clear that he stood apart from the onerous restrictions dictated by the Third Reich by anyone with two brain cells to rub together, but which totally flew over the heads of the young men whose job it was to observe his classes and report back any suspect behavior.

Hans Scholl and Alexander Schmorell respected him a lot, but also did not agree with him completely either, which led to Huber being quite upset with his leaflet – the sixth – being edited by Hans and Alex. This sixth leaflet was what Hans and Sophie got caught distributing around the Munich University that fateful day in February, 1943, and not only did they pay with their lives, but those who were close associates of theirs – Professor Kurt Huber included – paid that same price.

Professor Kurt Huber is buried in Munich. I made one attempt to find the grave, many years ago, but I’m not even positive I was in the right cemetery. I probably should have tried harder, but at the time, I figured that I’d complete that “quest” at a later date. (Living on the other side of the ocean does make these things quite a bit harder! *L*)

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