The last survivor of the White Rose resistance group, Traute Lafrenz, died on March 6, aged 103, in the US state of South Carolina, the White Rose Foundation announced yesterday.
“With sadness and great appreciation, the White Rose Foundation honors their courageous resistance and enduring testimony. For decades, Traute Lafrenz has been a quiet and impressive witness to the White Rose.”
public domain
Lafrenz was born in Hamburg in 1919 and moved from the Hanseatic city to the University of Munich in 1941 as a medical student. In the summer she met Hans Scholl at a concert, the two fell in love for a while. As a member of the group, she brought, among other things, White Rose leaflets to Hamburg, where, according to the foundation, they were passed on by former friends.
Just not school at the funeral
After the arrest of Hans and Sophie Scholl in February 1943, Lafrenz drove to Ulm and informed the family. After the murder a few days later, according to the foundation, she was the only one outside the family to attend their burial – a great personal risk.
In March 1943, Lafrenz himself was arrested, indicted in April and sentenced to a year in prison for “conformity”. However, she managed to disguise her real participation in the resistance, writes the foundation.
emigration to the United States
After her release from a Munich prison, she returned to Hamburg and was held in custody after investigations into the “Hamburg branch of the White Rose” – and was imprisoned in several prisons in Hamburg, Cottbus, Leipzig and Bayreuth.
In April 1945, she was released from Bayreuth Prison by US troops, and in 1947 she emigrated to the US. According to the foundation, she recently operated a special education school for children with mental disabilities. She had four children. In 2019 she was awarded the Cross of Merit, First Class, of the Federal Republic.
The White Rose organized the student resistance in Munich during the National Socialist dictatorship in Germany. The best-known members of the group against the National Socialists, brothers Hans and Sophie Scholl and their friend Christoph Probst, were executed by the Nazi regime 80 years ago.