By Chelsey Schweitzer

Staff Writer

The White Rose Memorial is a CSUSM commemorative plaque that is passed by thousands of unaware students each day.

I first heard of the memorial after being assigned by my sociology professor to locate its whereabouts. As a freshman at the university, I started asking other students around me for assistance in hopes that they could point me in the right direction. I then came to the halting realization that most CSUSM students are not at all that familiar with their campus. Only one of the 15 students I came in contact with was able to give me the location of the memorial along with a vague description of its tribute.

It was when I read the plaque that I gathered a clearer understanding of the monument’s history. The White Rose refers a group of students in Nazi Germany that urged the Germans to passively resist the regime. They anonymously passed out six different leaflets that urged active opposition on the part of the Germans, using covert means of distribution such as leaving the pamphlets in phone booths or having female students travel by train to bring the pamphlets to other areas.  On Feb. 18, 1943, two of the White Rose members personally distributed pamphlets by scattering them across their campus for students to pick up. They were caught and turned in to the Nazi party. Soon afterward, the rest of the White Rose members were caught and put on trial. Six of the members were executed by guillotine and the remaining were imprisoned for treason.

The White Rose Memorial is decorated with tall, white roses alongside a small well of water and stands just north of the Arts building on the San Marcos campus. The tribute has been in place since 2003 and acknowledges the efforts of the White Rose members, the only resistance group to denounce the horrors of the Holocaust, and allows for the group to be remembered by today’s students. Even more so, it shows us all here at CSUSM that as students, we can make a great and influential impact on the world. Our voices can be heard. There also lies a ladle inside of the well that gives people the opportunity to give water to the roses.

I ask my fellow students to take a moment in passing and feed this symbol of strength and determination. The lack of interest in the memorial is a truly sad oversight and I hope that urging awareness will allow for more students to share in the incredibility of White Rose.

If you want to find out more about the White Rose and their actions go to my source for much of this information, holocaustresearchproject.org.