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DOCUMENT 10. Extract from a Letter from Kurt R. Grossmann ,* New York, to Inge Scholl, Describing the Mass Meeting Held in New York in 1943,to Pay Tribute to the Six Victims of Nazi Punishment, the Schools, Probst, Schmorell, Huber, and Graf. The year was 1943,a dreadful year since day by day the news from Europe represented tragedy, hoplessness, blood and tears. You recall: the extermination machine of the Nazis worked night and day.The only visible hope came from the Eastern front. The Germans had lost at Stalingard. Was it the beginning of the end? When would it come? In New York there existed an organization, American Friends of Germany. Its instigators were political refugees belonging to the socialist group New Beginning (NeuBeginnen ), which opposed the policy of the pre-Hitler Social Democratic party of Germany. They distributed material on persecution, on political resistance, on trials in the Nazi Reich, attempting to analyze the political situation , publishing an excellent book and article survey, in short, keeping American liberals informed. I visited quite often the office picking up material, lending books, talking to Paul Hagen, its spiritual motor. One day he told me of the tragedy of your brother and sister, Sophie and Hans Scholl, their trial and death sentences. You have movingly described their deeds in your exciting book Die Weisse Rose (Students against Tyranny) and the "Geschwister Scholl" and their comrades have become historical figures. Hagen told me that a protest meeting was being planned at Hunter College for these Germans. "The Americans must learn to distinguish between Nazis representing the evil spirit and *Kurt R. Grossmann (b. 1897) is a refugee author and publicist who came to the United States in 1939. After 1952 he was executive assistant of the Jewish Agency for Israel until his retirement on April 1, 1966. Grossmann is especially known as the Secretary General of the German League for Human Rights (1926-1933) and author of the first biography of Carl von Ossietzky (Kindler, Munich, 1963) for which he received the Albert Schweitzer Book Award. His latest book is Emigration, The History of the Hitler Refugees 1933-1945 (Europaische Verlagsanstalt , Frankfurt, 1969). 158 'the other Germany' representing democracy." Three weeks later my wife and I attended this meeting at Hunter College, which remains unforgotten for several reasons. Hundreds and hundreds of New Yorkers came to pay tribute to six heroic victims of the "other Germany." Their names meant little to them at that time but their deeds very much. Their sacrifice proved that Hitler was not the master of all Germans and their conscience; there was resistance, and their tragic death represented a glimmer of hope for the future. Two of the speakers were extraodinary personalities . The First Lady of the Land, Eleanor Roosevelt, wife of the President, spoke and she demonstrated then what she later wrote to me: "I like the Germans, especially those fighting Nazism, but I hate and despise the Nazis." Her speech was moving and of great political significance. Another speaker was one of the leading Negro women, Anna Hedgman (she later became a figure in the New York City administration under Robert F. Wagner). She spoke in the name of all suppressed people, she cried out and accused the oppressors, and like Eleanor Roosevelt she stretched out her hand to the brave resistance fighters in Germany. It was a moving, an exciting, yes a unforgettable evenning. It happened in New York in the middle of the war — and this was the important message it relayed to the German people: You must fight for your own liberty— Like Sophie and Hans Scholl did. When you, Inge, visited New York in April 1957 I had the idea to arrange a meeting with the speakers and organizers of this memorable Hunter College Meeting. However it was impossible to get even the most important participants together. Though you met at parties and meetings some of them connected, or not, with the event, we both cherish the memory of our tea with Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt in the garden of her city residence at 211 East 62nd Street on April 29, 1957. The always gracious lady, on April 30, 1957, sent me a thank-you for the carnations, which concludes: "I am so glad you and Mrs. Aicher-Scholl could come in to see me yesterday." Source: Letter to Inge Aicher-Scholl, March 15, 1969, with additions March 30, 1970. Reproduced by permission of its writer. 159 ...

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