THE COURAGE TO SAY NO

This picture was taken in 1936 at the Hamburg shipyards during the launch of a new ship. Also present was Adolf Hitler, all those present made the Nazi salute, except for one man: August Landmesser, 25 years old.

August Landmesser was a shipyard worker, a member of the Nazi party since 1931. In 1935 he met Irma Eckler, a young Jewish woman of 22, had two daughters. In 1935 the law prohibiting mixed marriages between Aryans and Jews came into force: In the summer of 1935, both discovered that Irma, according to the "Nürnberger Gesetze" ("Laws of Nuremberg"), was considered a Jew: this prevented them from recognizing their marriage at the registry office of the municipality of Hamburg.

In 1938 he was arrested with his wife for disgracing the "race" and the daughters sent to the orphanage. Sentenced to forced labor. In 1941 August Landmesser was sent to the front where he died. Irma died in captivity.

In 1991 the newspaper Die Zeit publishes the photo that is kept at the documentation center of the Gestapo Terror Topography in Berlin

https://www.topographie.de/en/topography-of-terror/

One of her daughters recognizes her father in the photo and reconstructs the story of her family and in 1996 she published a book that tells the whole story.

"Ingrid and Irene, the children of the Jewish woman Irma Eckler, grew up separated from each other and without their parents. They survived persecution and war. When she was over fifty, Irene, born in 1937, began to investigate her past - a past that had been repressed until then. Although his search for clues to the past had begun late, he nevertheless brought to light some surprising facts. From books, films and television programs, Irene built an image of the Third Reich and was able to place her experiences in a historical context. Above all, he gained a better understanding of his parents, who both encountered violent deaths. He had no memories of his mother and only once had he consciously met his father. He visited Hamburg to discover his mother from surviving relatives. He also searched for his sister and exchanged memories, letters, photos, and documents. Irene discovered that her archive of protection could be found at the Amtsgericht (lower court) in Hamburg. And so it was. The file has become the guideline for investigating his past. "

http://www.fasena.de/

This photo also had another destiny. The photo was published on February 4 on an organization's Facebook page to help victims of the earthquake that hit Japan in March 2011. The earthquake followed by a deadly tsunami and the Fukushima disaster. Since then, more than 108,000 Internet users have "liked" this photo on the social network, almost 39,000 have "shared" and more than 8500 have commented.

For the Japanese organization Senri no Michi, this snapshot symbolizes "the courage to say no". "Courage" is also the title given by Fasena, a news site on the Auschwitz concentration camp, cited by the Washington Post. Obviously, he is not the only one who has found the strength to refuse.