... with two people who lost their father in a violent way as children. The fathers of the two were members of the conspiratorial group around Stauffenberg, who carried out the assassination attempt on Hitler on July 20, 1944, in order to put an end to the Nazi terror and to establish a constitutional state. It failed. The consequences are well known.

As part of a seminar for students from two 10th grade classes of the Johannes Guttenberg Gymnasium in Waldkirchen (Bavaria), we met Frauke Hansen and Dr. Axel Smend in April 2023. The two, who survived the Nazi regime as children and grew up without a father, spent four days living and working with the students. In the educational center of the Hanns Seidel Foundation at Kloster Banz, pics4peace as a cooperation partner of the Institute for Political Education was able to record the exciting conversations between witnesses and students at the seminar "Resistance yesterday - Resistance today". Ute Schärmann designed the program "Resistance yesterday"; Pia Beckmann worked out the topic "Resistance today" with the participants.

Here are the videos. They also invite dialogue. They are now available to schools, educational institutions and youth groups, as well as to anyone interested in talking about all forms of resistance yesterday and today:

• Link to contemporary witness video with Axel Smend
• Link to contemporary witness video with Frauke Hansen:

After the rescue attempt to free Germany from its dictator had failed and Hitler survived, he took revenge. He had many of the children of the resisters taken hostage to a Nazi home as late as the summer of 1944.

Little Frauke was taken from her mother and sent to Bad Sachsa with more than 40 other children. There they wanted to take away their identities. After the end of the war, she was able to return to her mother. Today Frauke Hansen, whose father was executed after the failed assassination attempt, goes to seminars and schools, speaks about her experiences and urges vigilance. "Wehret den Anfängen," she and her students have learned. Autocrats are on the rise again. Defending our values and rights is important. It starts small, where we are. Where have you witnessed this?

Axel Smend is also a so-called child of July 20, 1944. On the very same day after the assassination attempt failed, Hitler had Stauffenberg and three other like-minded people shot on the spot. He had others who were part of the resistance captured and tortured in order to learn as many names of the conspirators as possible. Most of the defendants were then sentenced to death and executed before the People's Court under its president Roland Freisler, often without the families of those involved knowing anything about it.

Axel's father was murdered by hanging on September 8, 1944, along with other conspirators at the Berlin Plötzensee execution site.
His mother was still at the Gestapo house in Berlin on September 9 to find out something about her husband. The case officer kept her in the dark. It was not until October 3 that she was served with the execution notice for her husband's execution, including a bill for the cost of the execution to be paid by her.

In seminars, churches and schools, Dr. Axel Smend, who has been involved with the July 20, 1944 Foundation, among others, for 20 years, speaks about his experiences. His work with young people and with the foundation's cooperation schools is particularly close to his heart. In addition to remembrance work, he is particularly concerned with the lessons and messages of the individual resistance circles against National Socialism in their significance for the present. He gives his listeners the phrase: "EVERYONE IS EVERYONE!"

Therefore, each and everyone deserves our respect. Where the respect and the rights of individuals are given up, democracy is in danger. And our commitment is needed wherever we see it. This starts with family and friends. How do you think about it?