Sophie Scholl Legacy was founded on March 20th, 2013. Through this Legacy, the Center promotes an invigoration of the culture of responsibility, a confrontation with the past, a culture of retribution for war crimes, and solidarity with the victims i.e. survivors of all aspects of violence.
The legacy was named after Sophie Scholl, a German student who showed remarkable courage to speak out against the Third Reich during World War II. She is our heroine. The Center for Civil Courage actively opposes fascism, ethnocentrism, militarism, misogyny, racism and xenophobia.
We, who live in peace and democracy today, are responsible for not staying silent for all the victims of war, violence, and threats. Civil courage means not to put up with the proclaimed “truths” about the last wars in the area of former Yugoslavia; not to accept revisionism and national insensitivity towards other people’s victims, not to celebrate war criminals as heroes, but to sympathize with all victims and to give them a voice; to encourage confrontation with those dark parts of the past that preceded the last wars. We will shout. “Laws change. Conscience doesn’t.” Sophie Scholl is our response to all those who say they did not know or could not act.
Unfortunately, we are not able to visit all the sites of crimes. We are guided by the mission to go where courage is needed to face the past, where crimes are denied by the majority and where the majority forgets about the victims.
