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Jul 15Liked by Katja

You have sparked my interest in White Rose. I wish my sister could have met you — she was a real scholar of Hitler’s Germany and would have jumped on your translations of AS’s letters. That must have been a huge job, translating them, I mean. Are they to be the ebook you’re working on? Thank you for sharing this presentation with us, your readers.

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Way back in the day, twenty years ago, I was looking for information about Alexander Schmorell online and there really wasn't a whole lot to find. However, there's a book called "Du Hast Mich Heimgesucht Bei Nacht" which was a collection of letters and diaries of many people who were jailed and executed by the Nazis. Somebody had posted Alexander Schmorells, and I was so moved by them, I did English translations and posted them to my site. Those translations got lifted to a number of sites, but I think I'd always felt that although they were pretty decent, they were a little clunky.

Back before Lent, I ended up talking with Fr. Joseph, the priest at the church in Kenosha and he became aware that I know quite a bit about St. Alexander, and so he asked me if I would be willing to do a presentation for St. Alexander's name's day (July 13). I said I would. I actually did another presentation on his life back in 2017, and so I wanted to narrow the focus, and I thought it would be nice to do something to highlight those letters. It would also give me an excuse to retranslate the letters from prison.

In 2011, a book by Christiane Moll came out with a book - 900+ pages - publishing letters that both Alexander Schmorell and Christoph Probst wrote. I'd read parts of her overview, (which is over 200 pages by itself) and a few of the letters, but I really had to go deeper to try to build on the premise that there was significant spiritual growth which occurred at the end of St. Alexander's life. Knowing that happened and putting together a presentation to demonstrate that are two different things! *L* And June had all sorts of other complications pop up, so there was a lot to finish up at the end!

The book I'm putting together really isn't related - it's just one that Fr. (St.) Sebastian Dabovich wrote in 1898, probably making it one of the first books about Orthodoxy available in English. That project ended up dragging out longer than it should have, but it's run up against two other projects - moving the kids' rooms and this presentation - which have much stricter timelines for completion.

It certainly sounds like it would have been nice to meet your sister to talk about these things! One of the things that I ran into with this is how, for the most part, there is a camaraderie among the people who have interest here. :)

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