Journal: To 3/31/02

Ruth Hanna Sachs

March 31, 2002

Plans for a trip to Munich next month ~ to talk to people, visit archives, shoot more video and take more photographs ~ are being firmed up. By June, the White Rose section of the Center for White Rose Studies Web site should be fleshed out and provide even more information for interested readers. This will likely be the last "journal entry" until late May, giving time for travel prep in advance, and catch-up work upon return.

March 21, 2002

White Rose stationery (available through Exclamation! Publishers, with profits going to the White Rose scholarship fund) is looking good. It is an indescribable feeling to see years ~ years! ~ of work making sense and taking shape. The best is yet to come!

February 28, 2002

OK, now I can admit it out loud. In December, I had nearly gotten to the point of walking away from the White Rose. On occasion, it has felt hopeless. I work my tail off, nailing down facts, ferreting out details that yield significant insight into the dynamics of the friends who called themselves the White Rose. And it seems like it does no good. On days like those in December, it seems that only people who are willing to perpetuate lies and half-truths are the ones who get to talk out loud, who get to be designated "experts" on this remarkable story.

But now, as progress becomes more visible, I find it easier to stick to my task at hand: Documenting the true story with irrefutable evidence, then telling it in a form that is accessible to young and old alike.

"Progress" says to me that there are people out there who want Truth to be told, to be documented. Hopefully, Truth will outlast the Lie. Ironically, that's what Hans and Sophie and Christl and Dr. Huber and Willi and Schurik gave their lives for.

February 14, 2002

Wow, what timing. It really is unbelievable. John Leekley (Prince of Central Park; Wolf Lake; Miami Vice) fell in love with the White Rose story 20 years ago, and has recently obtained the go-ahead for a major feature film. Not telling secrets out of school here ~ it has been announced twice in Variety already. Spent several hours on the telephone with J.L. this week

Unimaginable just a few days ago, that someone would actually be doing a movie that gets the story right... I can hope, at least.

Center for White Rose Studies has finally been founded. Long time coming. It's got to be worth the effort.

February 7, 2002

Back to basics! By now, a little over a year after beginning this online journal, the White Rose Access database has grown to 2,440 individual records (approximately 500,000 words). The substantial part of extant documents is in the database. But there's another 200,000 words or so that still needs to be added, and it will take a while yet. These are the things collected here and there, letters that contain a fascinating tidbit or morsel. Individually, these facts are not "important", but they certainly add up to a larger whole.

In addition, I need to get Ziegler's excellent work about Eugen Grimminger into the database. Grimminger is hardly an incidental character, though he is treated as such. Ziegler's book fleshes out the Grimminger relationship to the Scholl family, and adds an intriguing woman ~ Tilly Hahn ~ to the White Rose story.

I truly have my work cut out for me!

January 31, 2002

If anyone had told me that being the executor of my grandmother's estate would be this much work, I wouldn't have believed them. She did not have all that much. She had disbursed her furniture and antiques in 1996 when she moved from her forever-home to a retirement center. And she was only in the hospital four days before she died. And she had no debt. So why is this so amazingly hard? Not complaining, as much as wondering aloud why corporations like Southwestern Bell and Time Warner Cable are incapable of handling easy transactions correctly the first time around. Maybe politically, this is the real story ~ "Al Qaeda" is merely the distraction to make us forget that customer service and quality assurance are nearly nonexistent in these United States.

January 3, 2002

My grandmother died this afternoon, so it may be a couple of weeks before I can update this journal. Heading to Houston tomorrow, driving a U-Haul back (hopefully not in the snow and ice). She had a long and relatively good life.

To 10/1-12/31/2001 entries.

To 4/1-6/30/2002 entries.

Site last updated: October 31, 2007.