Freiheit, The White Rose Graphic Novel-Andrea Grosso Ciponte, author
At first, I found some of the graphics off-putting and confusing. However, the presentation of the leaflets at the end, clarified a great deal of the message, making the presentation more intelligible and digestible. The story is too important to be unread. It is based on an organization of young students fed up with Hitler and his minions, young men and women willing to sacrifice themselves for the good of the country. The White Rose existed. It was a resistance effort, in Germany, during WWII. The effort and the message should be introduced in schools and studied.
The exemplary behavior of these ordinary, young citizens who chose to work together to end the scourge of Hitler, at the risk of their very lives, many of whom were, indeed, lost to the evil of The Third Reich, is beyond one’s ability to adequately offer praise. One has to wonder what motivated such courage? The readers will wonder if they possessed that kind of bravery and valor. These resistance fighters should be counted among the true heroes and heroines of the war. Facing danger and their own fear, they did what they believed was right. They struggled to return freedom, not only to their country, Germany, but also to those who forgot its value, who lost sight of their own humanity, prompting man’s inhumanity to man to flourish.
The book is inspiring, however, it needs to have the guidance of an educator to fill in the blank spaces about the Holocaust. There is much more to the story of the barbarism of the Nazis. Still, the message of this book is profound in its simplicity. All it takes to effect great change, for the good of mankind, are a few good people. All it takes for evil to take hold are a few people who choose to remain blind, deaf and dumb to its horrors. Fascism must be resisted or it will grow into a malignant tumor with desires to spread throughout the world, a monster that will be difficult to conquer. It would be better to stop it in its infancy.