The Woman Who Split The Atom: The Life of Lise Meitner by Marissa Moss

When Lise Meitner was a young girl she loved math, often sleeping with a math book underneath her pillow. Her father who was from Czechoslovakia, and her mother who was from Russia, valued education for all of their eight children, including Lise. They lived in Austria where it was easier for Jews to study, work and live. However, higher education was off limits for girls in the late nineteenth century in Europe. Their presence in university was deemed distracting. In 1897, the laws were changed allowing women to enter university provided they passed the high school exit exam. This would be difficult for most young women at this time because they would not have attended high school. 

Lise and her older sister Gisela studied and passed the exam; Gisela went on to medical school while Lise went on to study physics at the University of Vienna in 1901. Most of Lise's classes where taught by Ludwig Boltzmann whose daughter was also studying physics. It was Boltzmann who believed in the existence of atoms (something controversial at the time), who presented to Lise the idea that physics was about seeking out the truth, and he urged her to go to graduate school.

Lise Meitner became the first woman to earn a Ph.D. in physics from the University of Vienna. Because no one wanted to work with a woman, she built her own lab equipment and began studying the absorption of alpha and beta radiation in different metals. In 1907, at the age of twenty-eight, Lise published her first article on measuring the scattering of alpha particles. After meeting Max Planck, who was studying quantum physics, Lise decided to move to Berlin. The University of Berlin was intimidating to Lise because it had no women students or professors. There, in 1907, she met Dr. Otto Hahn who was working at the Chemistry Institute. She was given a lab room in the basement but it had no equipment so Lise made her own equipment. Lise and Otto Hahn began working together and eventually both were given a new modern lab when the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute (KWI) opened. 

Lise met Albert Einstein in 1909 when they both lectured at a conference in Austria. Einstein's lectures were on relativity and how mass is a form of energy as defined by the equation E=mc². Einstein explained later that the inside of an atom held enormous energy. He, like Lise and others believed this energy inside the nucleus of an atom could not be extracted or harnessed. In 1913, Einstein came to work at KWI and Lise was now teaching at the University of Berlin.

During World War I under the direction of Fritz Haher, Otto Hahn helped develop chemical weapons for Germany, gassing Allied troops with chlorine gas and killing thousands of men and maiming many more. Haber "weaponized chlorine" and also developed a means for Germany to make fertilizer and fertilizer-based explosives as well. For Lise, the use of science in warfare was deeply upsetting.

The post-war period in Germany was one of soaring inflation and tough times. Lise continued her research into beta and gamma radiation, studying the "decay chain of radioactive substances". She continued to publish scientific papers with Otto Hahn. Together they showed that decay could be used to date the Earth and Sun. It was an exciting time in radioactive research: the cyclotron was being developed to study particle behaviour, and Lise was using a cloud chamber to map the movement of particles.

In 1920, Lise became a professor at the University of Berlin. At this time she began a close friendship with Niels Bohr and his wife Margrethe after he came to lecture in Berlin and she in Copenhagen. In 1924 Lise won the Prussian Academy of Science's Silver Liebniz Medal. In 1925 she won the Vienna Academy of Science's Ignaz Lieben Prize and in 1929 she and Otto Hahn were nominated for the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. However, the 1920's saw the rise of anti-Semitism in Germany, especially against Jewish scientists like Einstein. There was a belief that there was a pure Aryan science and that the science of Jewish scientists was fraudulent.

January,1933 saw Hitler become the Chancellor of the Third Reich. It became illegal for Jews to work in government, universities and research institutions, so Einstein resigned from the KWI and the Berlin Academy of Sciences and remained in the United States. Many Jewish German scientists quit, leaving the country for Britain and the United States, but Lise Meitner was not one of them. Although she couldn't teach or attend meetings, she still had her lab. 

By 1938, Lise was the only remaining Jewish scientist at KWI and she was finally asked to leave by Otto Hahn who was being threatened with the loss of government funding. Lise lost her KWI apartment and eventually found herself trapped in Germany. With the help of an entire network of scientists, Lise fled Germany, through the efforts of Dutch physicists Dirk Coster and Adriaan Fokker and her editor Paul Rosbaud, to the Netherlands. She eventually moved to Stockholm, Sweden.

In  the mid-1930's,  scientists were bombarding elements with neutrons and creating what were thought to be new heavier isotopes which they called transuranics. After not having collaborated with Lise for many years, Otto Hahn and his new partner Fritz Straussman sought her out to help them understand their results. In 1938, when Lise met Otto in Copenhagen, they discussed the strange results of his recent experiments. Instead of seeing new heavier transuranics, Otto was creating lighter elements. He simply did not understand what was happening on an atomic level and he needed Lise's help. In 1939, he wrote up and published a paper with his results, concluding that all transuranics research needed to be reinterpreted. But Lise, contemplating his results, soon understood that something much more important was happening - the uranium atom was being split! It was this discovery that would change the war and the course of history. Unfortunately Lise Meitner would not be acknowledged for her discovery.

Discussion

Anyone who has studied chemistry and physics in high school and university will be familiar with the names and contributions of Albert Einstein, Niels Bohr, Max Planck, Werner Heisenberg, James Franck, Fritz Haber and Otto Hahn. What is almost certain, is that these same students have never heard of Lise Meitner, a woman physicist and a Austrian Jew who discovered nuclear fission.  The Woman Who Split the Atom tells Lise's story, her contributions to nuclear physics, her daring escape from Germany and her struggle to be recognized for her scientific contributions.

Marissa Moss has written an engaging, informative account of Lise Meitner's life and scientific contributions to nuclear physics. It is the story of a life set against the backdrop of gender and racial discrimination amid two World Wars.

Author Marissa Moss captures the determination and courage that Lise Meitner exhibited throughout her life, succeeding in spite of enormous obstacles encountered as a result of discrimination. Initially she faced many barriers simply because she was female. Women were finally allowed to attend university in 1907 but they had to pass a high school exit exam, despite the fact that girls could not attend high school  Lise passed this exam. Once she graduated, Lise couldn't get hired as a physicist and lost a good job writing for an encyclopedia because she was a woman. So she had to use her initial rather than her full first name to disguise her gender. 

Even though women were finally allowed onto the campus of the University of Belin in 1908, Lise found the atmosphere intimidating and hostile at the mostly male school. She was given a lab, in a basement without pay or position, and had to make her own lab equipment. Despite all of these obstacles, Lise's hard work and determination eventually saw her develop an international reputation for her research on radioactivity. She published many articles and earned the respect of many of her male scientist-peers. 

When she finally achieved an academic position in Berlin, a new obstacle surfaced: her Jewish ancestry. But Meitner was reluctant to flee to safety until the last minute, because it meant giving up all that she had achieved as a woman physicist. It would mean starting all over. Because she had overcome many of the barriers due to her sex, she felt she could also overcome the barriers due to being Jewish. She could not have been more wrong.

However, an even greater challenge awaited Meitner. In 1938, Lise Meitner was able to explain Otto Hahn's unusual experimental results as the splitting of the atom, a process she called nuclear fission.  Lise and Otto Hahn published a paper in 1939 describing nuclear fission and were nominated for the Nobel Prize in 1941, 1942 and 1943. In 1945, Otto Hahn was awarded the 1944 Nobel Prize  for nuclear fission. He refused to acknowledge that it was Meitner who understood the atomic process that was occurring in his experiments. This lack of credit continues to this day, with the continued erasure of Lise Meitner as the scientist who explained the process of nuclear fission.

In her Author's Note, Moss writes, "By focusing on Meitner's work, as she did herself, I found the story that needed to be told: how a brilliant woman was marginalized first because of her gender, then because of her ethnicity, and ultimately by her gender again when the Nobel Prize went to a man who had no concept at all of nuclear fission, rather than to the woman who had described exactly what happened." Moss's book is an attempt to give Meitner back her place in history as the discoverer of nuclear fission. 

Her erasure was foreshadowed by the events surrounding the discovery of a new isotope called protactinium in which "...Meitner did the experiments, discussed the results with Hahn, wrote up their findings, and published them." Hahn received credit for this discovery and was awarded the Emil Fischer Medal. Meitner received a copy of the medal and no recognition for her research. She would be nominated at total of FORTY-EIGHT times for the Nobel Prize. She never won.

There are forty short chapters in The Woman Who Split the Atom, each beginning with an comic illustration of an event to be highlighted in the chapter. Moss describes Lise Meitner's struggles to be accepted into the male-dominated world of science, and to have her work acknowledged, something that was denied repeatedly. Moss also describes Lise Meitner's belief that science should be used for the good of mankind. This belief was severely challenged through two world wars that saw scientists develop chemical warfare in World War I and the atom bomb in World War II. In the latter war, it was Lise's discovery of nuclear fission the led to the development of the bomb. She would work towards developing atomic energy and to challenging German scientists who refused to acknowledge their complicity in the Holocaust.

The Woman Who Split the Atom is fascinating reading, drawing on the considerable research done by Marissa Moss. It is highly recommended for those interested in history and science, especially the discovery of atomic energy. Moss includes a detailed Afterword which is a sort of Epilogue demonstrating that the record regarding the discovery of nuclear fission remains incomplete and inaccurate without the acknowledgement of Lise Meitner's contribution. This thorough and detailed biography includes an Author's Note, a Timeline of Meitner's Life and Achievements, Glossary of Select Terms in Physics, Profiles of Scientists Mentioned, Notes with sources of quotes, a Select Bibliography and an Index. 

Book Details:

The Woman Who Split The Atom: The Life of Lise Meitner by Marissa Moss
New York: Abrams Books for Young Readers     2022
258 pp.

Lines of Courage by Jennifer A. Nielsen

In Lines of Courage, Nielsen weaves together the stories of five fictional characters from different countries to bring to life the events of World War I .

Felix Baum

Twelve-year-old Felix Baum lives in Lemberg in the Austria-Hungary empire with his mother and father. It is June 12, 1914, and Felix and his father have just left their train in Sarajevo to walk to their hotel. Nearby, they see Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the future emperor, accompanied by his wife. They are surrounded by a crowd of unhappy people.

Sarajevo is the capital of Bosnia which was annexed in the Austria-Hungary empire six years earlier. However, Bosnia did not want this and neither did its neighbour, Serbia which hoped to establish its own empire. Felix's mother had warned them not to travel to Sarajevo, that a group of Serbian rebels called the Black Hand would be there. It seems his mother may have been correct.

Felix and his father watch as the Archduke and his wife travel by open limousine through the streets crowded with angry people. It is during the Archduke's trip through the streets of Sarajevo that Felix and his father witness the assassination of the Franz Ferdinand and his wife. Because of this they leave the city immediately.

At home in Lemberg, things are quiet. At a dinner party hosted by his parents, Felix meets eleven-year-old Elsa Dressler, the daughter of a German Major. She gives Felix a carrier pigeon, so they can correspond even though Felix isn't interested. Elsa tells him that war is coming because Germany has prepared for war with a modern army and that it wants war. This prospect worries Felix.

A month after the assassination, the world awaits Serbia's answer to the Kaiser's ten demands. When the deadline passes, war is declared by Austria on Serbia. Felix's papa is to report to Vienna for service. His papa tells him that Austria-Hungary will be fighting not only Russia, but France and Great Britain as well. 

Eventually the war comes to Lemberg, which is occupied by the Russians. Felix and his mother attempt to escape but are too late and are forced to host the Russians. Captain Garinov wants his mother to identify the Jews living in Lemberg so they can be deported to camps. Felix refuses to cooperate and is chained to a fence post. With the help of Elsa and her mother, they make a daring escape out of Lemberg to Vienna.

 

Kara Webb

In their small fishing town on the British coast, thirteen-year-old Kara Webb and her mother flee from the bombs being dropped by a German airship. It is January 19, 1915. Kara's mother is a nurse who has been helping tend to wounded soldiers being sent over from the battlefields in France and Belgium to local hospitals. Kara hopes one day to be a nurse.

Seeing people wounded from the bombing, Kara runs to help her mother treat them. When a woman mentions the Red Cross, Kara's mother reveals that she has been asked to join them but that she cannot leave her daughter. Later Kara learns that her mother has been asked to work on the ambulance trains in France. Kara not only wants her mother to accept but also wants to accompany her.

Kara and her mother arrive in France to work on an ambulance train. They meet Corporal Bryant, the orderly who explains that the train is comprised of sixteen cars and can hold up to five hundred wounded. Although not officially part of the Red Cross, Kara hopes by her work on the train, delivering food, reading letters to the soldiers and carrying messages from one ward to another she might earn her Red Cross pin. Captain Stout is encouraging to Kara, but he warns her to follow the rules and not to administer emergency care to the patients.

Then in June their ambulance train is ordered very close to the front. Kara is not allowed to help stretcher wounded back to the train but is forced to wait for them to arrive. However, when an orderly breaks his ankle, Kara is allowed to fill in and partner with Corporal Bryant until a shell severely injures Bryant. Kara's quick thinking saves Bryant when they are caught in a poison gas attack. 

At a Casualty Clearing Station in Northern France, Kara makes the decision to sneak aboard the train an injured Austro-Hungarian soldier, Sergeant Baum who is seriously wounded. For disobeying the rules, Kara is forced to give up her apron and stop helping on the train. She is devastated but certain she has done the right thing. Sergeant Baum survives and tells her about his son Felix who is determined to become a soldier because of how badly he was treated by a Russian soldier. In thanksgiving for saving his life, he gives her his Austria war medal.

 

In December of 1915, during a visit to the town of Verdun, France, Kara and her mother meet Juliette, a refugee from Lille who is selling jewelry to buy food. Kara worries for Juliette because the rumours are that the Germans are coming to the town, which is considered a key location. She pays for Juliette's red hat but returns the hat because she can see the girl will need it during the cold days ahead.

Juliette Caron

February, 1916 and Juliette Caron, her younger brothers Marcel and Claude and her mother quickly pack some belongings in preparation for evacuating Verdun. Juliette and her family have already fled from their home in Lille but now as the Germans gain more territory they must flee Verdun too. They  are taking valuables to sell in the hopes of bribing the Germans to release Papa from prison in Lille. 

Because they take so long to pack, Juliette's family find themselves alone on the road out of Verdun and soon encounter the arriving German soldiers. When they surround their wagon, Juliette flees into the woods to safeguard their money. She becomes separated from her family and is forced to hide overnight. She is found half frozen and unconscious by an orderly from the hospital train that stopped outside of Verdun.

On the train she is helped by Kara who tells her that there are refugee camps throughout France, with lists of people who are lost. This will help Juliette be reunited with her family. Juliette decides to leave the train in March and head to Lille to try to get her father out of prison. However, in Lille things do not go according to plan: she has her money stolen by Monique, a girl who has taken her in, and her attempt to bribe Major Dressler fails. She and Monique are also captured by the Germans, along with many other French girls and forced to work on a local farm.

With Monique's help, Juliette escapes the farm but is captured by Major Dressler in July. He tells her that he has met with her father in prison and they have become friends. Acting on a promise he made to her father, Dressler escorts Juliette across German lines into French territory where she is reunited with Kara and the hospital train. Juliette is allowed to stay on the train for two months, helping in the kitchen and laundry. Major Stout has reconsidered and reinstates Kara, designating her as a "nurse-in-training". At this time Juliette decides to leave the train and search for her family around Verdun. She hopes her mother may have found refuge in a nearby cave.

In the trenches outside Verdun, Juliette finds much needed food and supplies, left behind by the retreating Germans. A search of devastated Verdun doesn't turn up her family and she returns to the caves. But one day  in December, 1916, while looking for firewood, Juliette sees a wounded soldier wandering through a minefield. She manages to lead him to safety and takes him to the caves.

Dimitri Petrenko

Fourteen-year-old Dimitri and his friend Igor Zolin are fighting alongside French soldiers. They have no weapons and are ordered by Captain Garinov to go out into no-man's-land to get one from a dead soldier. But as they are out, crawling along the ground, the Germans attack. Dimitri is knocked unconscious. When he awakens, he wanders off into a minefield where he is helped by a girl. When he awakens he finds himself being cared for by Juliette in a cave.

The talk about their families and what the war has done to their lives. Dimitri decides he will return to his unit to continue to fight for freedom especially after what he has seen in Europe. When it comes time for him to leave, Juliette gives him a haversack and her red knit hat. He also discovers that she has given him the Austrian war medal.

Back in the trenches, reunited with his friend Igor, Dimitri and the other soldiers are ordered by Captain Garinov over the top. It is April 1917 and during this battle Igor is killed by a grenade. After the battle the Russian soldiers learn that the Tsar has abdicated and the revolution in Russia has begun. They refuse to fight and after a confrontation with the French Commandant LeBlanc, leave the war. Dimitri doesn't follow Garinov and the other soldiers as he supports the Tsar. However, he finds himself a prisoner of war when he is captured by the few German soldiers who survive the destruction of their trench.

Dimitri finds himself in a prison camp in Freiburg, Germany and after five months is sent to work on Major Dressler's home. It is November, 1917. At the Dressler home, Dimitri discovers his enemy, Captain Garinov is also a prisoner. When Garinov discovers Dimitri has an Austro-Hungarian medal, he tells Elsa that Dimitri has stolen it. Elsa tells him that the medal belongs to the father of a boy named Felix. Dimitri tells her that he was given the medal by a British girl on a hospital train. When Elsa tells her father what happened, instead of punishing Dimitri, he arranges for him to be driven to the French border and to safety. He tells Dimitri not to return to Russia because of the revolution but instead to go to Verdun, to Belleray where he will be able to get a job with an old friend of Dressler. In Belleray, Dimitri is hired to work at Dressler's friends market. And it is there that he meets the mother of a girl he knows is searching for her family.

Elsa Dressler

It is now April of 1918 and it's evident that Germany is losing the war. The people of Germany and starving and Elsa and her family are also struggling. Their neighbours are blaming her father who told them the war would bring glory to Germany.  They want a new government but the type of country they want, Major Dressler does not want to be a part of because they "...want a Germany of pure-blood Germans only..." While he is away, he tells Elsa they must focus on working in their garden so they will have the food they need.

At the market, Elsa spies Garinov, the Russian captain who ran off with their horse. Scared he might harm them, Elsa's mother writes to her father for direction. Meanwhile they receive a letter from Felix Baum asking to visit them in Freiburg. Conditions continue to deteriorate as Elsa and her family run out of food rations and are unable to sell any of their valuables to buy food. By November of 1918, Dressler writes to tell them that Germany is asking for peace. He also indicates that he will return home after he is released from the army and they will make plans to leave Germany. However, Major Dressler is attacked and seriously injured near Belleray by angry Germans. To help him, Elsa will need the help of many people.

 

Discussion

Lines of Courage attempts to portray the far-reaching effects of World War I on English, French, German and Russian civilians and soldiers through the stories of five teens. World War I had its beginnings with the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungary throne, and his wife Sophie in September of 1914. The resulting war would draw in many countries in the world, beginning with Austria-Hungary and Serbia, and radiating out to their allies including Britain and its colonies, France, Germany, and Russia.

Nielsen breaks her story up based on her five fictional characters from these countries: Felix Baum from Lemberg (now Lviv, Ukraine), Kara Webb from England, Juliette Caron from Lille, France, Dimitri Petrenko from Russia and Elsa Dressler from Germany. Although they begin the war in very separate places, their paths crisscross, ultimately converging at the end of the novel. They are brought together by a series of circumstances, ultimately connected by deliberate acts of courage.

The line of courage is represented by the Golden Cross of Merit, Felix Baum's father attempts to give him at the beginning of the novel. However, Felix refuses his father's offer, telling him, "I won't accept what I haven't earned." So Sergeant Baum keeps it with him until his life is saved by the courageous action of Kara Webb who disobeys orders and loads the seriously wounded Baum onto the hospital train. This results in Kara losing her job of helping on the train. Baum recognizes the risks Kara took and gives her the medal. He tells her "...perhaps one day you can share this medal with someone else. I like to think that it will become part of a journey that inspires courage in others."

When Juliette Caron is rescued, nearly frozen, Kara helps her calm down and figure out what she needs to do next. To help her get her father out of prison in Lille, Kara gives her the Golden Cross of Merit to use as part of a bribe. This plan fails and after many events, Kara finds herself in the caves outside Verdun. It is there that she courageously rescues Russian, Dimitri Petrenko, who is wounded and not aware he is walking through a mine field. She has now earned the medal. But when Dimitri tells her he must return to the war so that he can earn a medal that will make a better life possible for his family in Russia, Juliette passes the medal onto Dimitri. The medal is then taken from Dimitri when he is a prisoner of war by Captain Garinov, who insists that Dimitri has stolen it. Once Major Dressler learns the truth about the medal, he accepts it from Dimitri whom he sets free as an act of kindness, recognizing that he is too young to be a soldier.

With the medal in his possession, Dressler returns to Lille to help free Juliette Caron's father as well as many of the other prisoners. However, with the war almost over, Elsa's father, Major Dressler is seriously wounded by fellow German soldiers. With the help of Elsa, Felix, Dimitri and Juliette, and Captain Garinov, Major Dressler is taken to the hospital train where Kara works. The medal has come full circle. In the end we learn that Felix has earned his own medal for bravery. Major Dressler tells them that each has earned it in their own way. "This medal belongs to every one of you. At some point, each of you found yourself in a terrible situation, and you responded with courage, with honor, and with kindness. Through your examples, you saved me." 

Nielson packs much information about the war and fighting into the novel through her characters. For example, Sergeant Baum attempts to explain to Kara what the fighting is really like and later in the novel readers are presented with the utter destruction that occurred during the war in Verdun when Juliette returns to try to find her home:
"...Most of the few buildings still standing looked ready to topple over with the next gust of wind. Half of them had at least one wall stripped away. Any memories that might have been preserved for the families who'd lived there once were now open for anyone to view, or they had been long ago scattered about.....
At last she turned onto a road that was familiar. There, not far ahead, stood a house that she recognized, left nearly intact. Her home would be across the road and thirty steps down.
Yet thirty steps later, she stood facing a pile of rubble, rocks and plaster and brick jumbled up with items she vaguely recognized as having belonged to her family once.
This could not have been her home, not this terrible pile of broken dreams. But it was."

 

Lines of Courage does capture some of the reality of life during the Great War; - the devastation from years of shelling and gas, the terror of battle for the soldiers, the displacement of refugees and the fragility of their existence in countries torn apart by war, the fear and mistrust people from one nation had for people from other nations, the futility of war. The end of the war is also shown to be a time of upheaval with references to the revolution in Russia and the murder of the Tsar and his family, of the coming of the Spanish Flu which Elsa's mother contracted, and the discontent and anger in Germany over losing the war and the foreshadowing of an even worse time to come. 

There is a detailed Author's Note at the back with information on the assassination of Franz Ferdinand, the Red Cross trains, trench warfare, the Battle of Verdun, the Russian Revolution, the Weimar Republic and the impact of World War I. 

Lines of Courage is another outstanding novel by Jennifer Nielsen. Informative, engaging and realistic is it's portrayal of war and its impacts on soldiers and civilians alike.

Book Details:

Lines of Courage by Jennifer A. Nielsen
New York: Scholastic Press      2022
388 pp.

Trapped In Hitler's Web by Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch

It is October 1942. Nathan Segal and Maria Fediuk are considering the ad on the wall outside the Reich Employment Office, in Nazi-occupied Lviv, Ukraine. Nathan and Maria are from the village of Viteretz which they have fled because Nathan is Jewish.  He had escaped the Nazis and arrived at Maria's home begging for refuge. Now under the assumed identity of a Christian by the name of Bohdan Sawchuk who had been murdered by the Soviets, Nathan along with Maria have fled to Lviv. Maria has left behind her mother and her older sister, Krystia. 

Maria believes applying to work for the Reich, if effect, hiding in plain sight, might just be what works. The necessary forms are filled out and Maria sees that they have been assigned to work in a metalworks factory. The young typist, scans their forms and realizes Maria is only eleven years old and Nathan, just twelve years old. She carefully changes their work assignment to farm work in the Austrian Alps. They will be on the Huber farm in Thaur, Ostmark, the Nazi name for Austria.

At the train station, they are directed to the tracks where the train will take them to Innsbruck. Only Maria and Nathan along with a young girl Maya and her sister Krystia are waiting for that train. Maria learns that they were captured on the way to school.

When the train arrives, they are loaded onto a boxcar crammed with other kids, all exhausted. The train stops in Belzec where some children are removed and again in Vienna. Then at Salzburg, Nathan is forced off the train and Maria is made to go onto Innsbruck alone.

Maria is terrified, wondering if Nathan will be able to pass as a non Jew and if she will be able to survive without him. She arrives in Innsbruck but is locked up until the following morning when the farmer comes to pick her up. The man who comes to pick her up is Herr Lang, the father of Frau Huber who runs the farm. Herr Lang promptly takes Maria's passport and her identity papers.

Maria is surprised at the size of the Huber farm, which consists of "one large house, barns and sheds, and vast vegetable fields" many chickens and eight cows. The vegetable fields are filled with beets, carrots, cabbage and onions. There are also large fields of potatoes.

Beatrice Huber is disappointed at the arrival of only Maria when they were expecting many more workers. She sends Maria to dig potatoes with Bianka, another worker kidnapped in Warsaw.  At noon, Frau Huber tells Bianka and Maria they can take two potatoes from the field every day but warns them not to let anyone see them do this.

At lunch, while eating her ration of one black bun, the Maria and the other workers are visited by Blockleiter Doris Schutt who visits the farms, keeping track of the foreign workers as well as reporting on the Aryans like the Hubers and Langs.  She gives Maria a badge with the letter P on it signifying she is Polish. Bianka explains that because the area of the Ukraine she is from was part of Poland before the war, she is considered Polish. There are other workers who are from the Soviet Ukraine as well as Aryan workers from countries allied with Germany.

As the days pass, Maria begins to doubt her decision to work for the Nazis as a way of hiding from them. Harvesting the potatoes makes Maria think of all the starving people back in the Ukraine. As she is forced to cook delicious meals for the Nazi youth who come to the farm to help the harvest, Maria can't help but think of those who were robbed of the food they need to survive. Maria also learns that, despite what the poster said, they do not get Sundays off nor are they paid. She and the other workers must also deal with the cruel Blockleiter who continues to visit and scrutinize the workings of the farm almost every day. Even worse is Frau Huber's daughter, Sophie who belongs to the League of German Girls. Sophie is dismissive and abusive towards Maria and Bianka, calls her mother by the formal Frau Huber and spies on her own family for the Nazis.

When Frau Huber's son Otto returns from the Eastern Front, with a leg wound, he is not what Maria expects. After Sophie calls the Russians "subhuman", Otto reminds her that the people she considers "subhuman" are fighting with intelligence and bravery. Otto repairs the barn that Maria and Bianka sleep in and thanks her for the work done on the family farm. Unexpectedly he then offers her information on how to escape to Switzerland. With this new knowledge, Maria decides she has to try to find Nathan in Salzburg and pass on the information to him. But how will she travel to Salzburg without her identity papers?

Discussion

Trapped In Hitler's Web is another outstanding novel by Canadian author, Marsha Skrypuch. This book continues the story of the Fediuk family begun in her earlier novel, Don't Tell The Enemy. The focus on that novel was on the character of Krystia, Maria's older sister. Now Maria's story is told in Trapped In Hitler's Web, as she and Nathan flee further into the Reich, hoping to save themselves and help those back home.

In this novel, Skrypuch focuses on life in the Third Reich, specifically daily life in Austria, renamed Ostmark by the Nazis. Austria was annexed by Germany in 1938 and like other countries, its riches plundered to supply Germans and the Nazi army. The people who lived in Eastern Europe, in Poland and the Ukraine were labelled Slavs by the Nazis and considered "subhuman". It was Hitler's intent to starve and work them to death, emptying the rich lands of these countries so they could be resettled with German "Aryan" citizens. The war created a labour shortage in Germany and workers were brought in from Eastern Europe. While Jews were outright murdered in Eastern Europe, people like Maria, labelled Slavs and Poles and therefore considered subhuman, were tricked into coming to work in the Reich, believing they would be well fed and paid. This was not the case as Maria and Nathan quickly discover.

Maria is sent to a farm owned by Herr and Frau Lang and managed by their daughter Frau Huber, whose son Otto and husband are away fighting on the Eastern Front. The Langs do not support Hitler, but Frau Huber, although kind, seems to dislike "Slavs". However, as time passes, Maria realizes that Frau Huber tries to defy the Nazis in little ways, such as allowing the workers to take extra food.

Skrypuch portrays how Nazism effected family life in Austria. In particular, young people were indoctrinated to believe they were superior to other races and therefore had the right to treat them any way they wanted, even to beating and murdering people. In the novel,  Frau Huber has watched her daughter Sophie becoming increasingly more strident in her beliefs,  brainwashed by the Nazi youth group she belongs to. For example, at Christmas, Maria learns that Sophie and her family no longer celebrate Christmas. Instead of decorating a Christmas tree with traditional candles and festive ornaments, Sophie hangs a silver swastika on the Christmas tree. She tells Maria  "We celebrate Rauhnacht. Christ was a Jew. Why would we celebrate a Jew's birth? Our celebration is to give tribute to our holy father, Adolf Hitler." Sophie considers "A hanged Jew swinging on a scaffold" to be both interesting and funny. Shocked, Maria wonders, "What kind of world did I live in where people like Sophie thought it was funny to hang a replica of a murdered Jew onto a Christmas tree?"  When the tree is eventually cut and put up, Frau Huber does not allow her daughter to place the hanged Jew ornament on the tree.

This scene serves to show how Nazism perverted traditions. This scene is based on an old Bavarian tradition known as Rauhnaucht, celebrated during the Christmas season, and somewhat similar to Halloween in North America. People use incense to cleanse their homes of evil spirits (hence the word Rauch which means smoke) and sometimes dress in costumes, making noise to drive away monsters and evil beings. As with Halloween, children sometimes go from house to house asking for treats. But for Sophie, Christmas has lost its meaning and has turned macabre.

Skrypuch demonstrates how Nazism perverted family structure as well, removing children from the guiding influence of their parents, whom they were encouraged to address formally rather than the respectful, Mutter and Vater.

The years of Nazi socialism has also distorted social classes with the Aryan class simply stealing the property of murdered Jewish citizens. When Maria accompanies Frau Huber to Salzburg as she visits her wounded son, she begins to see the consequences of years of Nazi rule. The house Frau Schwarz lives in, has been stolen from a Jewish family who were likely executed.  Frau Schwarz steals designer dresses, has the labels removed and new false labels of her own shop sewn on. Maria sees people on the tram who are healthy looking, in contrast to the starving, emaciated slaves working on farms and on the bridge. Using the descriptions of every day events, Skrypuch is able to portray to her readers the contrast between those people enslaved by the Nazis and the "Aryan" population.

Throughout the novel, Maria struggles to come to terms with working for the Reich. Her initial intentions were good ones, to save Nathan and support her family. But when neither seems to have happened she experiences much internal conflict. As a result, she finds it difficult to accept Otto's thanks for her help on his family's farm. "I had mixed feelings about assisting anyone who was working on the Nazi side. I had come here for my own goals -- to help Nathan escape and to earn money so Mama and Krystia could survive the war. This farm was producing food for my enemy, and while I was helping the wrong side, what had I done for Mama, Krystia, or Nathan?"

One of the more poignant events in the novel occurs when Maria and Anna kneel in a small park opposite a Catholic church to hear Mass in Salzburg. Forbidden from entering the church by the laws in place, Maria and Anna find a place near the church. They are seen by the priest who blesses them and leaves the door ajar so they can hear the Mass. It's a touching example of the devotion many Catholics continued to have, despite serious persecution.

Trapped In Hitler's Web is a well written, interesting story that continues the saga of a cast of Ukrainian characters during World War II. The novel ends with Maria meeting up with her sister Krystia and learning some heartbreaking news about her family. They flee the Huber farm, narrowly escaping a death squad in the forest. With the death of Hitler and the end of the war, they finally arrive at a refugee camp and begin plans to travel to their Aunt Stefa Pidhirney in Toronto, Canada. 

The novel holds special significance for Marsha Skrypuch, whose father-in-law escaped both the Soviets and the Nazis by fleeing into the Reich where he worked as a farm laborer. He survived the war, ending up in a refugee camp. Trapped In Hitler's Web is a fine testament to him and many other survivors of the brutal Nazi regime.

Book Details:

Trapped In Hitler's Web by Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch
New York: Scholastic Inc.    2020
228 pp.

When The World Was Ours by Liz Kessler

Three best friends forever linked by a moment in time, experience the horrors of the Holocaust. Leo Grunberg, Max Fischer and Elsa Bauer spend Leo's ninth birthday riding on Vienna's famous Ferris wheel, the Riesenrad. It's 1936 and the three are spending the day at the fairgrounds, afterwards eating sachertorte for Leo's birthday. During the Ferris wheel ride, Leo's papa takes a picture of all three friends in the carriage at the top. 

When Papa begins chasing and tickling the three, Leo trips over a lady's outstretched foot. His papa makes Leo apologize, but the lady tells them in broken German that it is nothing to worry about. They learn that couple, Aileen and Eric Stewart are from England. When the ride ends, Papa is still in conversation with the English couple and he offers to pay for another ride. Leo's father learns that Eric Stewart is a dentist who is now late for his conference talk, so he invites the Stewarts to his home for Leo's birthday dinner.

A few weeks later, Max's father takes the three friends swimming at the Amalienbad. When Leo's father comes to the car to say hello, Mr. Fischer is not friendly. Max met Leo and Elsa when they started Volksschule together a few years ago. At that time, Leo's parents had invited the Fischers for dinner hoping to become friends, but that friendship had never really materialized. Despite Max's father's rudeness towards Leo's papa, the boys have fun swimming and diving.

After the swim, Max overhears his parents talking about Leo's father, "Shows you what they're all like, all of them. Making out they're one thing while underneath, they're another thing completely. Liars, the lot of them. Sneaky, nasty, dirty, rotten -- ..." Max doesn't understand why his father would think this of Leo's father whom everyone loves. When he tells his father he's going out to play with Leo and Elsa, his father becomes angry but is stopped by Max's mother from saying anything more. This leaves Max wondering what is so wrong with Leo and Elsa.

One spring day in 1937, Elsa learns from her father Vati and her mother Mutti that they are leaving Vienna and moving to Czechoslovakia. This stunning development shocks Elsa who cannot understand why it is no longer safe for them to remain in Vienna. At the park that day, a tearful Elsa explains to Max that the country is no longer safe for Jews. But Max refuses to believe that being Jewish is dangerous. This news upsets Max terribly and tries not to cry. Instead, he gives Elsa a kiss as he realizes this will be the last time he sees her. When he returns home, Max tells his father that's he's spent time with Leo and Elsa. His father angrily forbids him from seeing them again, telling Max he's not to spend time with Jews.

In early 1938, Elsa and her family have settled into life in Prague, Czechoslovakia. She misses Max and Leo but Vati is working and Mutti seems happy. Then Vati announces that he is joining the army to fight off the Germans who are invading Czechoslovakia. Meanwhile, in Vienna, Mr. Schmidt,  the headmaster at Max and Leo's school, informs the students that mornings will now begin with the "Heil Hitler" greeting. He also tells the students whom he's just named and whom are all Jewish, that they will "...be treated like the lesser race you are! You will sit separately in lessons and assembly, at the back of the room."  

Max and the other students are told they are not to interact with the Jewish students because they are "dirty and  inferior" and that they must "...pretend they do not even exist". Max doesn't understand because he knows Leo is not dirty however, he instinctively moves away from his friend. This shocks Leo, who finds himself not allowed into class later on. Even worse, on his way home, Leo comes across his father and several other Jewish men being forced to scrub the pavement by Max's father who is now wearing a uniform with the Nazi swastika on his arm. Leo's father tells him to leave when he moves to help his father who is being kicked by Mr. Fischer. When Max arrives home, he learns that they are moving to Munich where his father is to be a senior SS officer. Although reluctant to leave, Max is hopeful that life in a new city will offer him a chance to start over. But what he doesn't know is that he will change in a way he never thought possible.

As the Nazis invade more countries and war consumes Europe, Max becomes increasingly drawn into the life of a young Nazi and taught to hate Jews. His rise through the Hitler Youth sees him sent to Auschwitz where he is forced to make a fateful choice. Meanwhile, Elsa and her family experience the occupation of Czechoslovakia and eventually are sent to the Jewish ghetto. As their rights and property are gradually stripped away, it isn't long before they are sent to Theresienstadt. Eventually their family is sent to Auschwitz. For Leo and his mother, the chance encounter four years earlier on the Ferris wheel will end up saving their lives. War has separated the three friends but fate will bring two of them together in a tragic way.

Discussion

When The World Was Ours is historical fiction novel about the Holocaust, told from the perspective of three childhood friends, Leo, Elsa and Max who live in Vienna, Austria as Hitler is in power in Germany. The story is crafted around an experience author Liz Kessler's father Harry Kessler had when he was eight years old. As told in her note at the front of the novel, Kessler's father Harry "had nearly scuffed " the dress of a British woman. As in the novel with Leo's family, this moment led to a day together with the British couple, a thank you letter, and ultimately led to a way to escape the ever-tightening noose of the Holocaust. Elsa's story portrays what might have happened had Kessler's father not escaped while Max's narrative explores "...how so many ordinary people could have become part of such a brutal, evil, and horrific regime."

In many ways it is Max's story that is the most tragic because it is a story of a young boy who is taught to hate. Kessler chronicles how a young boy, desperate for fatherly attention and affirmation, is transformed into a diligent Nazi. Max's childhood had been unhappy with memories of his parents arguing over money. He is visible only to his father when he finds something to criticize him for. An outcast at school due to his poverty, his friendship with Leo and Elsa becomes a stabilizing factor in his life. In particular, it is Leo's father, a happy, kind man, who helps Max. So when he hears his father blame the Jews for his own problems, and when the headmaster singles out the Jews at school, Max experiences shame and confusion.

When his family moves to Munich, Max becomes part of the Nazi culture. He strives to do what his father advises, "Don't stand out. Don't speak out. Do exactly what your teachers tell you and copy the other boys if you are unsure." Soon Max not only belongs, but he is a leader. When he's told things that make him uncomfortable, he doesn't question or speak out. "When their teachers told them how important it was to rid themselves of the scourge of the Jewish enemy, how the Jews were filthy, inferior, disgusting creatures, Max kept his face as still and impassive as he possibly could. He didn't tell them his old friends were Jewish."

Despite this, Max remembers the happy times with Elsa and Leo, looks at the photograph  that he has kept hidden. "And then the questions would come. Were Leo and Elsa really the enemy? Were they the people he had to hate? Could there be a mistake of some sort?" Life in Munich is good, but when Max hears things about Jews, he isn't convinced they are true. Soon he begins to doubt that Leo and Elsa were Jews.

Max is able to bury deep inside himself, the memories of that wonderful day in Vienna. When he hears things that he knows to be lies, he stops registering that this might be wrong. But when Max looks at the photograph of that wonderful day so long ago in Vienna he realizes what his current life in the Hitler Youth truly is. "In an instant, nothing of his current life was real. He saw it for what it was: a vain, superficial attempt to fit in. To be loved. To be praised by his father, by his leaders, by Hitler. None of it was a fraction as real as his friendships with Leo and Elsa had been. The only two people who had ever really loved him for himself, with no expectations or demands." But when he destroys the photograph and the letters from Leo that his father has hidden, Max shuts his heart against these thoughts. 

Eventually, Max is forced to confront what he has become, when he is taken to kill his first Jew at Auschwitz, where his father now works. That Jew does what Max couldn't do for himself. She reminds him of who he once was and that it is love, not work that sets you free. But can Max accept that as an answer to the conflict he is experiencing or is this merely just another test to prove he's a good Nazi? Does Max have the courage to stand up for what he knows is the truth: that Jews are not the enemy, that hating and murdering your fellow human beings is wrong and doesn't solve any world problems? Does he have the strength to face the truth of what his life has been?

It's probably unlikely in the real world of the 1930s and 1940s, that a young Max, thoroughly indoctrinated in Nazi ideology, would have given a second thought to what he had been taught and questioned what he was asked to do. Beginning in 1933, the education system in Germany was purged of Jewish teachers and professors and anyone who opposed the Nazi regime. The German education system which had produced a wealth of brilliant scientists, artists, writers and poets, now focused on indoctrinating young people in Nazi ideology including racism, antisemitism, obedience to the state, and devotion to Hitler. According to the Holocaust Encyclopedia, "The Hitler Youth and the League of German Girls were the primary tools that the Nazis used to shape the beliefs, thinking and actions of German youth." Resistance was almost impossible and not tolerated, as members of the White Rose resistance group, a small group of university students would quickly learn.

Nevertheless, When The World Was Ours is a well written novel that encourages young readers to consider these kinds of questions in a world where social media now entices others to ridicule, cancel, dox and hate others for their different beliefs, attitudes, customs and skin colour. By portraying the transformation of Max, Kessler encourages her readers to consider what leads people to hate and how such hate can be countered, so that events like the Holocaust might never again happen.

Book Details:

When The World Was Ours by Liz Kessler
New York: Aladdin   2021
337 pp.

DVD: A Hidden Life

A Hidden Life is a biopic about Austrian conscientious objector and Catholic saint, Franz Jagerstatter. Written and directed by Terrence Malick, A Hidden Life is a jewel that simply must be seen by anyone who is interested in studying the past, learning from history and discovering those hidden acts that only now are coming to light.

The film opens with the voice of Franz Jagerstatter stating "I thought that we could build our nest high up in the trees, Fly away like birds to the mountains."  This is followed by black and white archival footage of Hitler being welcomed by the masses, speaking at huge rallies with cheering crowds. Austria has become part of Hitler's Third Reich. Events will unfold that will change Franz's life forever.

Franz and his wife Fani are working in the fields of the farm high in the mountains near the village of St. Radegund, Austria, in 1939. Husband and wife are a team, working together scything, planting potatoes and raising their three beautiful daughters.

Fani reminisces about how she and Franz met, how her sister now lives with them, how life in their village is filled with hard work, good neighbours and is happy. But overhead the sound of an approaching airplane hints at the troubles to come.

In 1940 Franz finds himself at the Enns Military Base doing training. There he meets a fellow recruit, Waldland who is always happy. In a letter to her husband, Fani reveals that France has surrendered and that she's heard they are allowing the farmers to return home. 

At the military base, Franz and the others watch propaganda movies about Germany's conquests of France and Russia. But while the other soldiers clap enthusiastically, Franz is deeply disturbed. He sees the destruction and the human cost and writes to his wife, "Oh my wife. What's happened to our country? To the land we love?"

Summer turns to winter and then to spring, and Franz finally returns home. Fani and the children are ecstatically happy. During the wheat harvest in the fall, one of the farmers tells Franz he has been called up. He thought there would be peace but the war simply goes on. To Franz's question,  "Do you believe in what we are fighting for?" the farmer answers, "Not really." As Franz and the village miller Trakl watch their neighbours embrace Nazism, Trakl questions Franz, " Don't they know evil when they see it?..." Knowing Franz does not support the Nazis, he warns him to be careful.

In a conversation with his parish priest, Father Furthauer, a troubled Franz reveals that if he is called up he cannot serve. "We're killing innocent people, raiding other countries, preying on the weak. Now the priests call them heroes, even saints. The soldiers that do this. It might be that the other ones are the heroes. The ones who defend their homes against the invaders."  Father asks Franz if he's considered the consequences of his actions, for his family. He tells Franz he would most likely be shot and his sacrifice would benefit no one. He does agree to speak to the bishop about Franz's situation.

Franz's internal conflict deepens and Fani notices a change in her once carefree husband. He is thoughtful and worried. When brown shirts show up to collect for the war effort, Franz refuses, telling them he has nothing to give. This leads to a visit from Kraus, the mayor of Radegund as to why he's not supporting his people and the war effort. Franz however,  remains unmoved by the mayor's pleas.

Franz and Fani go to see Bishop Joseph Calasanz Fliesser. But the bishop is of no help to Franz. On the way home Franz tells Fani, "I think he was afraid I was a spy. They don't dare commit themselves or it could be their turn next." Eckinger, a neighbour explains to Franz that the bishop is going along, trying to appease the Nazis, in the hopes the regime will be more tolerant towards the church. Priests are being sent to concentration camps and church possessions are being banned.

The villagers begin to ostracize Franz and Fani. Franz's mother is upset with Fani, blaming her for changing her son. The mayor violently confronts Franz, telling him they must defend their country and that he is traitor to his people and his country.  Despite this Fani supports Franz. She tells him their prayers will be answered, if they are faithful to God, he will be faithful to them. 

Eventually their worst fears are confirmed: Franz is called up. The couple are devastated for they both know that if Franz follows his conscience, he will never return home. In March of 1943,  Franz reports to Enns for military service. He refuses to take a pledge to Hitler and is promptly arrested and put in prison. So begins his short journey of hidden resistance and ultimately to martyrdom.

Discussion

Written and directed by Terrence Malick, A Hidden Life portrays the events leading to Franz Jagerstatter refusal to support the Nazi regime and war, which he considered a great evil. As a result, Franz was arrested, imprisoned and guillotined at 4pm on August 9, 1943 in prison.

A Hidden Life is a deeply moving film that asks viewers to consider the role of conscience in our everyday lives, to explore the concepts of just war, the lost virtue of moral courage, and the possibility of sacrificing everything for our most deeply held convictions. It does so by setting this moving human drama against the majestic backdrop of mountains, waterfalls, blooming meadows and fast-flowing rivers.

Franz and Franziska on their wedding day

Franz Jagerstatter (played by actor August Diehl), whose Catholic faith blossomed after his marriage to Franziska Schwaninger (Valerie Pachner), a devout Catholic,  came to believe that Nazism and Catholicism were completely irreconcilable. When he saw the goals of the Nazi war, to enslave other nations, to plunder their resources, wealth and culture, and their determination to murder an entire race of human beings, he knew he could not participate in any way. To do so was to cooperate with a great evil.

When he was called up for a third time in 1943, Franz reported to the military base at Enns, Austria but refused to complete his military service. According to the Reich Court Martial  “that, due to his religious views, he refused to perform military service with a weapon, that he would be acting against his religious conscience were he to fight for the Nazi State…that he could not be both a Nazi and a Catholic… that there were some things in which o­ne must obey God more than men; due to the commandment ‘Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself’, he said he could not fight with a weapon. However, he was willing to serve as a military paramedic.” Interestingly in Malik's film, his offering to serve as a paramedic is somewhat glossed over. In fact, in real life, his request to serve as a medic was denied.

In A Hidden Life, Franz is repeatedly told that his conscientious objection would serve no purpose and therefore was meaningless. He is called a traitor, that his actions are sinful. His lone resistance would be hidden - no one would ever know of it, it would not alter the course of the war, nor stop it. Time and again he was told he had an obligation to his country, his people and to his family. 

Opposition surrounds him on all sides. His Catholic parish priest and even his Catholic bishop were of no help. Hoping for some guidance from his bishop, Franz is told that he "has a duty to the Fatherland, the church tells you so." and that he must obey those in authority over him. Franz asks the bishop, "If our leaders are not good...if they're evil. What does one do?" His bishop has no answer for him.

Before reporting for military service in 1943, Father Furthauer (played by Tobais Moretti) challenges Franz, "Does a man have the right to let himself be put to death for truth? Could it possibly please God?" He tells Franz that God wants us to be happy and not bring suffering on ourselves. In response to Father Furthauer's rationalizing, Franz astutely counters that we must stand up to evil. 

Franz talking with Judge Lueben

In prison, Franz's lawyer tries desperately and repeatedly to get his client to sign a paper. He doesn't understand Franz's defiance asking him, "How do you know what is good or bad?" At his military tribunal in July 1943, Judge Lueben meets with Franz privately. The Reich judge is deeply puzzled about Franz's objections and berates him, "Do you imagine that anything you do will change the course of this war? That anyone outside this court will ever hear of you? No one will be changed. The world will go on as before."  And yet at the end of his time with Franz, one senses that maybe Lueben does understand, that he is condemning a good man.

Franz's intense spiritual conflict is set against the backdrop of the spectacular beauty of the Alps. Malik filmed these scenes in the Italian Alps while the scenes in the farmhouse were shot in the Jagerstatter home in Radegund. The cinematography is one of the most outstanding features of this film. Scenes of Franz and Fani working together, scything wheat, running their mill, milking cows, sowing crops, cutting wood, baking bread, playing with their young children, and spending time alone, portray a simple life of honest but hard work. Set against a backdrop of breathtakingly beautiful scenes of mountains, misty forest, rushing streams, and golden wheat fields, Malik captures the beauty of nature  High in the Austrian Alps, in the tiny village of Radegund, one can feel the presence of God. These scenes of joyful family life and a loving marriage show and Fani's unwavering support sustain Franz.

As it turns out, all who told Franz that his sacrifice would be meaningless and forgotten in the mists of time were wrong. Today he is a saint, his life the subject of a sublime film that has touched millions. On his beatification, Diocesan Bishop Dr. Ludwig Schwarz and Bishop Dr. Manfred Scheuer (Postulator of the beatification procedure) made this statement:

“Franz Jägerstätter is a prophet with a global view and a penetrating insight which very few of his contemporaries had at that time; he is a shining example in his fidelity to the claims of his conscience, an advocate of non-violence and peace, a voice of warning against ideologies, a deep-believing person for whom God really was the core and centre of life. His prophetic witness to Christian truth is based o­n a clear, radical and far-sighted analysis of the barbarism of the inhuman and godless system of Nazism, its racial delusions, its ideology of war and deification of the state, as well as its declared program of annihilating Christianity and the Church. His educated, mature conscience led him to say a resolute ‘No’ to Nazism and he was executed due to his consistent refusal to take up arms as a soldier in Hitler’s war.”
 
Those who wish to read more about Franz Jagerstatter's life are referred to the Diocese of Linz website.

The movie takes its title from a George Eliot quote from her book, Middlemarch:

"The growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life..." Franz's life and his act of passive resistance were most definitely hidden and unhistoric. His life, lived faithfully and his refusal to participate in a evil war, have done good that none of us will fully know in this life.

A Hidden Life is a beautifully crafted film, with a cast who give outstanding performances. Malik challenges his audience to consider the life of a man who simply could not cooperate with evil. Ultimately his hidden resistance cost him his life. While the personal price was high, Franz Jagerstatter demonstrated that there was still some good in a very evil time.

Image credits:

Franz and Franzsika wedding photo: https://johnpwalshblog.com/2017/10/26/blessed-franz-jagerstatter-1907-1943-farmer-husband-and-father-conscientious-objector-and-martyr/ 

Franz with Judge Lueben: https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2020/17-january/books-arts/film/film-review-a-hidden-life-cert-12a