Speaker Anna Rosmus dis­cussed how she revealed her hometown’s secret

Anna Rosmus knew she had to take action when she dis­cov­ered hor­ri­fy­ing secrets about her home­town of Passau, Germany when she was a teenager.

Rosmus, a polit­i­cal activist, deliv­ered a lec­ture on Friday, Oct. 23 about how she dis­cov­ered that the town of Passau had been a part of the Nazi regime dur­ing World War II, although offi­cials denied they had any part in sup­port­ing Hitler and the Nazi party.

Public offi­cials denied the Holocaust and refused to put an end to the Neo-Nazi par­ties and “right-winged” or national social­ist orga­ni­za­tions in Germany.

“I won­dered what I could do to play a role to help the sur­vivors,” said Rosmus dur­ing her speech. She decided to take action by hold­ing ral­lies and protests to help bring out the truth.

What ulti­mately prompted Rosmus’ deci­sion to take action was enter­ing an essay con­test that required her to do research about the his­tory of Passau. In her speech she said it was required that stu­dents learn about their home­town. Her father, the prin­ci­pal of her school, encour­aged her to write the essay regard­ing the truth behind Passau.

Rosmus won the essay con­test. Her 220-page essay even­tu­ally became a book, known as “Out of Passau.” Since then, she has pub­lished four books and was a win­ner of the Geschwister-Scholl-Preis, a lit­er­ary prize, in 1984.

Incidents Rosmus brought up in her speech were times when Jewish cit­i­zens were attacked, a jour­nal­ist was ‘knocked to the ground and kicked,’ and an 18-year-old was attacked for her Mongolian looks. These were just some of the atroc­i­ties Rosmus dis­cussed that encour­aged her to want to make a difference.

Rosmus said that she, as a 27-year-old mom and stu­dent at the time, lead the largest protest the city had ever seen.

“Hundreds of police­man sur­rounded us, we were just peace­ful demon­stra­tors,” said Rosmus. She added, “Policemen refused to look at the Nazi sym­bols, they said they didn’t see any­thing with a smirk on their face; it made head­lines in the United States and Europe.”

Rosmus again started a rally with her uncle in the town where there were “swastikas dis­played like giant neck­laces in the win­dows.” She said she and her uncle took pic­tures of the evi­dence before it was removed. Again, author­i­ties denied the incident.

Throughout her lec­ture, Rosmus shared sto­ries about the suc­cesses she has reached and strug­gles she has endured in bring­ing out the truth of Passau’s involve­ment with the Nazi regime in WWII.

Rosmus added that Neo-Nazi orga­ni­za­tions are no longer allowed to exist in Germany and she has suc­cess­fully helped sur­vivors of the Holocaust be recognized.

Students found Rosmus’ lec­ture to be infor­ma­tive, eye-opening and inspiring.

“It was very well informed, she def­i­nitely had a lot to say. It was def­i­nitely well put together. I enjoyed it, I want to know more,” said lib­eral arts major Shainna Beaderstadt.

Freshman Petra Coronado agreed. She said, “I enjoyed it a lot, it was very inter­est­ing, and she gave us a great mes­sage that we can apply as col­lege stu­dents in our society.”

That’s exactly what Rosmus encour­ages, she urges stu­dents to “get involved in your com­mu­nity.” She said, “Not only do you have the right to speak up, you have a moral oblig­a­tion to do so.”