Freiheit!

The White Rose Graphic Novel

by Andrea Grosso Ciponte

The dramatic true story of a handful of students who resisted the Nazis and paid with their lives, now in a stunning graphic novel.

With an entire nation blindly following an evil leader, where did a handful of students find the courage to resist? The university students who formed the White Rose, an undercover resistance movement in Nazi Germany, knew that doing so could cost them their lives. But some things are worth dying for.

The White Rose printed and distributed leaflets to expose Nazi atrocities and wake up their fellow citizens. The Gestapo caught and executed them. Sophie Scholl was twenty-one; her brother Hans, twenty-four; Christoph Probst, twenty-three; Alexander Schmorell and Willi Graf, twenty-five.

But the White Rose was not silenced. Their heroism continues to inspire new generations of resisters. Now, for the first time, this story that has been celebrated in print and film can be experienced as a graphic novel. Italian artist Andrea Grosso Ciponte’s haunting imagery will resonate with today’s students and activists. The challenges they face may vary, but the need for young people to stand up against evil, whatever the cost, will remain.

REVIEW

5 out of 5

This is a great introduction to a resistance group that existed in Nazi Germany, and while it doesn’t go very in-depth, we get a nice overview of the members and their activities. The illustrations are well done and enhance the story being told. Ciponte clearly did some research in order to write this, and did a good job balancing entertaining and informative. While I would like to learn more, I know it can be hard to pack a lot of facts into a graphic novel, and I’ll be doing some research on my own now.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Andrea Grosso Ciponte is a Calabrian painter, graphic novelist, filmmaker, and illustrator. He is a professor of computer graphics and digital animation techniques at the Academy of Fine Arts in Catanzaro, Italy. Ciponte was born in Praia a Mare, Italy, in 1977. In 2011 his work was shown at the Venice Biennale.