I like to think I could be Brave

 The White Rose: Munich, 1942-1943 by Inge Scholl 

This book was written by the younger sister of two of the founding members of the White Rose. She uses conversations, letters, and the pamphlets to construct a narrative of what happened during the year-ish that the White Rose was active. The White Rose was an underground movement, comprised mostly of college students, who were engaging in resistance against Hitler and his regime. Led by Hans and Sophie Scholl, they distributed leaflets and/or pamphlets discussing the horrors committed by the Nazi's; they also addressed the need to be brave and reject the Nazi ideals. The Scholl siblings were 24 and 21 when they died. They went to their executions calmly, their only goal was to not have any of their friends die with them. They did not succeed; one other was executed on the same day as them and for the next two years more members were either executed or sentenced to years in jail. I would like to think I could be brave in the face of danger, but I don't think I could be as brave as Sophie, who did not cry and saw the sunny day as a good day to die. When we teach about WWII we focus on Hitler and his actions, never the resistance. I did not even know about the existence of the White Rose until about a year ago when it was mentioned in a different audiobook, which led me to searching for books about it. These brave young men and women were barely out of childhood when they decided to take a stand for what was right, knowing that if they got caught it would mean their lives. Learning about the impact that the White Rose, and subsequent deaths of the founders, had is inspiring. And devastating.