Reflecting on that thread about Sophie Scholl. One thing that always stuck out to me in my studies of the Holocaust, particularly in the context of where I studied it (in Poland, with frequent trips to camps and many meetings with survivors) is the effect of regular people.

It was regular people who either enabled or subverted the fascist, genocidal efforts. There are far more people in the grey areas than there are on the hard lines, and simple gestures by people in that space either condemned or saved lives.

People who looked the other way or locked their doors when their neighbours were raided. People who opened their floors to hide strangers from the Gestapo. People who pointed fingers at dissidents. People who lied to the SS, knowing the risks.

Imagine you live in a tenement. And one night you hear heavy boots outside your neighbour’s door. Then yelling. One of their kids crying. There are two armed enforcers there to take them. You can close your door. Pretend not to hear. Maybe keep yourself safe another dat. Sure.

But if everyone in earshot opened their doors and shouldered some of the risk? Those two enforcers couldn’t take your neighbours. They depend on compliance and they depend on complicity of bystanders. I hope none of us ever have to make those choices, but there is always a choice

Anyway. I think a lot about the people no one in power bothered to fear and the lives they saved against insurmountable odds. The women in Kraków who trained resistance fighters in nursing under the guise of a cooking school while they peeled carrots.

Make sure that for every Jakob Schmid there is a Christine Zamojska-Panek.