Rainer von Harnack
11/07/11 | 13m 25s | Rating: TV-G
Rainer von Harnack is a third cousin to Arvid. His grandfather (Arvid's first cousin) was also killed as a member of the German Resistance along with 6 other family members. In this interview he explains what Mildred and Arvid have meant to their family and how their courage is a lesson from history.
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Rainer von Harnack
>> She married into a real family of scholars. >> Yeah, but she was educated and she was accepted immediately in the Harnack family. She met my great-grandfather, Adolf von Harnack, she was very, greatly impressed. She met my grandfather, who was killed in the resistance, and was accepted everywhere. She had a lovely way of being. Arvid felt and everybody, this lightness, but also she was very interested in everything. She was open to any experience. She had studied American Literature and now with Arvid more and more also German Literature and of course Goethe especially is included in that and Goethe nearly from the very first moment she met Arvid was part of their life. >> Growing up, what stories did you hear about Mildred and Arvid? Is there any one that kind of stands out in your mind of something that you had heard, that you thought was an interesting story? >> As a school boy it impressed me that there was a sign on his door and it said, for everybody in the family, it said "Nutzen Sie ihre Zeit" or "Use your time". So, I think he did use his time. >> That was on Arvid's door as a young boy? >> Yeah, he but in on there that people respect that he is also using the time and wants to tell everybody should use the time which is given to us and Mildred, her radiant personality, that's what Falk told me what I also heard already as a child. >> What do you think it was about the Harnack's and their relatives that made them join the resistance? >> Well, I mentioned their humane ideals. They were educated. I think that's why so many followed and they saw the brutalities and also they saw what happened to the Jews. Nobody could imagine that they were actually killed in masses. The Nazis could keep it a secret, but even the people who lived near the concentration camps, they could smell it. But there was this angst, the fear to talk and to say what's happening there. >> Do you know if either of them were religious at all? >> I don't really. Maybe Arvid as religious as Goethe was. >> Religious in Nature. >> Ja, The way Mildred picked up a rose and held it and smelled it, that was her closeness to nature. Whereas some call it God, others... I was very impressed when she was on holidays in early September in '42 when they were captured by the Gestapo and her last act was to give water to a bunch of flowers they had picked in the fields and that is something which shows this closeness, the respect. God-like or whatever you call it in every living being and a plant lives, an animal lives and she was...I don't know Madison, but it must be surrounded by nature and water. >> Donald Heath, Jr. told me a story and he said when she would come into a room... and it was similar to what you just said... he would bring her an orange because citrus was hard to get during the war and the US Embassy had access to Italy or wherever at times to get an orange. And he said, if he presented her with an orange... she would hold it in her hand and breathe it in and that's how she lived life and he gave the same story about a flower. >> You know what she had in her last hour? And it's recorded in the testimony of Harald Poelchau, is this orange she was holding in her hands and smelling it and looking at the beauty of this unity. If you cut it through, there are two. There's Mildred and Harnack, but here she was not eating it. There was the unity and it is another image, this beauty of this very rare orange, it's not like now a days. >> That surgery that she had prior, earlier that year... >> It had something to do with a miscarriage. I don't know in English... outside the uterus. >> Ectopic pregnancy >> Ectopic pregnancy, ja, ja... >> And I heard she spent quite a bit of time at Elmau castle? >> Yeah. My grandfather was there as well at Elmau, my grandfather became friends with the owner there and there were many musical evenings, many speeches given, many discussions and a very relaxed place in Southern Germany. I think she must have gone to Elmau because my grandfather had contacts. The Harnack's are close, but they... Arvid was too careful to talk about his... that he had a double role. >> Falk saw Arvid I think twice. He didn't tell me about that. I could feel that he was haunted by that what happened to his brother and to Mildred. Sometimes at night when he couldn't sleep, he reminded the Judge Roeder. He phoned him and he reminded him of what he had done. That is what he told me and it's strong. I still see him walking in the room when he said that. I could see that he fought all his life for the recognition of Mildred and Arvid and he would have been so happy to see that Mildred and his brother are more objectively seen and there will be a documentary about Mildred. >> What did Arvid mean to Falk? >> A lot. He was Arvid is 12 years older and Arvid was a substitute for his father, whom Falk never met. So, they had a very close relationship. They must have felt, at least, that of course outside of their education, their background, that they were both in the resistance. Falk, in this so called "White Rose" there's a postcard of the Gedenkstatter which is very interesting. It was sent by Mildred and Arvid to Falk for Easter and there's a picture of white roses by Van Gogh on it and on the back a very cryptic message for Falk, I guess. They sometimes had to, not to write directly, but they knew what it means beside the greetings for Easter. Somehow "White Rose" Arvid must have known about this. And that I would like to say also what Clara Harnack, the mother of Arvid and Falk, in the translation. What she said in a preface to a book about an experience of somebody in the concentration camp and that goes only to tell you because it is a good conclusion. "the resistance fighters, people from different backgrounds and perspectives united together, gave the world a magnificent example of human spirit and strength for reconciliation and unity." For me these words are also important because what do we learn from the past for the present? What for young people is resistance? When do we have to be aware of injustice? When do we have to show personal courage? I think that is the legacy of the resistance of Mildred and Arvid and so many, not only... in many families, not only in my family. >> How would you like Mildred and Arvid to be remembered? >> People who gave a good example for their personal courage. I think this we learn from, we should learn from history for the present. When do we have to show personal courage? Mildred, Arvid and so many others showed personal courage and I'd like them to be remembered for this because it is something for the present.
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