Sophie Scholl: The Final Days

(Movie Review)

The last class I ever took at Calvin was a class on teaching history. We had to read a book called “Lies my History Teacher told me” by James Loewen (which, by the way, is one of those books I can’t recommend enough, if you ever get a chance to read it).

One week, we were assigned a chapter on the absence of John Brown, and the disappearance of anti-racism in American school history textbooks. Our professor started the class discussion with a discouraging story from his own teaching experience. He recalled how one of his students had once written in an essay on slavery, “It’s all pretty terrible, but I suppose if I had been alive back then I would have just done the same thing.”

“Now,” the professor said, “As a teacher, how am I supposed to react to that?”

I remember being surprised that he was upset by this, because I had always figured the awareness that we are not above the forces of history is an enlightened and progressive view. It is easy to get on our high horse and talk about how foolish and evil our ancestors were, but would we have been any different if we lived back then? And once we recognize this, wouldn’t that cause us to look more critically at our own society and culture, and try and see it through the eyes of future historians?

I raised my hand and said something to this equivalent in class. The professor countered that it is important to also emphasize that throughout every age, there have been people who have stood up against evil and injustice, and if they are omitted from the history books, then it sends the message that we are powerless to fight against injustice in our own age.
Also, if we remember those who resisted injustice, it is all the more damning for those who simply went along with it, as it takes away any excuses someone might be tempted to make for the majority. They were not simply pawns of history or products of their time. They could have joined those who were fighting for justice.

If there is truth in this, and I think there is, then “Sophie Scholl: The Last Days” is the kind of movie that the film industry needs to make a lot more of. This is the true story of a 21-year-old university student in Nazi Germany who had the courage to stand up and say that what was happening was wrong. She and her brother were caught distributing anti-Nazi pamphlets, interrogated by the Gestapo, convicted in a Nazi court, and immediately guillotined. The amount of courage she shows is absolutely amazing and inspiring.

Long time friends of mine know I’m always criticizing movies for being too melodramatic or sappy, but this film manages to be extremely powerful without being overly emotional. Easily one of the best films I’ve ever seen.

A good film to compare this to is “Judgement at Nuremburg”, which Bork and I watched shortly before I came back to Japan. In “Judgement at Nuremburg”, the big Nazi war criminals have already been tried and condemned, and the court has moved on to judges and college professors who collaborated with the Nazi regime, even though they should have known better. The film asks the question why these good people allowed themselves to be corrupted.

Put in that context, “Sophie Scholl” is all the more powerful, because of all the judges, professors, civic and religious leaders who went along with Nazi Germany when they should have known better, contrasted with a 21 year old university student.

The movie makes a big point of Sophie Scholl’s Christian faith, and indeed her story plays like something out of the Old Testament, when all the people who are supposed to be moral leaders of Israel are silent about the injustice, so God raises up a Shepherd boy or an unknown prophet.

If you ever run across this movie in your local video store, I can’t recommend it enough.

Useless Wikipedia Fact
The Wiggles are an Australian band that specializes in children's entertainment. Since its formation in 1991, the group has achieved worldwide success with its children's albums, videos, television series and concert appearances.
According to Business Review Weekly magazine, The Wiggles were Australia's highest grossing entertainers for the year 2005, earning more than AC/DC and Nicole Kidman combined.[1]

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Sophie Scholl: The Final Days: Movie Review (Scripted)