Of the many events that formed my being and spirituality during the war, three of the most important were my hearing the shortwave radio broadcasts of American journalist Edward Murrow describing the bombing destruction of London—likewise hearing British Prime Minister Churchill on a shortwave radio broadcast defiantly vowing that even if the whole of London were destroyed, he and his citizens would fight to the last man, woman and child to defend their island nation—and watching my mother weep when she was told by father that her second-cousins Hans and Sophie Scholl had been executed by guillotine after being convicted of treason in People’s Court. […]