This is how the young Sophie Scholl answered the People's Court that interrogated her, accused of belonging to "The White Rose". To make matters worse, Sophie uttered these words with a broken leg, as a result of the torture she had previously suffered at the hands of the Gestapo. A group group of students, with the partnership of some teachers, had done something as simple as handing out leaflets denouncing the atrocities of the Nazi regime. They accompanied this action with anti-Hitler graffiti at the University of Munich. Five students formed the initial core of the movement, which soon gained followers in other German cities.

The interrogation, held on February 22, 1943, was brief, and the condemnatory sentence was carried out without delay: the Scholl brothers - Sophie and Hans - and Christoph Probst, leaders of the "subversive" group , were guillotined that same day. The other members of the White Rose met the same fate in the following months. Those accused of simple partnership suffered prison sentences ranging from six months to ten years. The nervousness, even fear, of the Nazi regime in the face of this outbreak of resistance was notorious. It was hard to see the proportion between the scope of the protest - the students were only able to publish seven simple leaflets - and the brutal response of the government.

When The White Rose begins its activity, Hitler had been in power for almost ten years -we have recently remembered the 80th anniversary of his accession to the Government-. After exhaustive research, we know almost everything about his life.

But there is one thing that still disturbs scholars: how such a monster could have risen to the top of the most cultured and developed society of his time. The collective humiliation imposed by the Peace of Versailles, which fed resentful nationalism, or the economic crisis, with its galloping inflation - engraved in the German imagination to this day, and which explains much of Angela Merkel's economic behavior - are not enough to explain the diabolical fascination that Hitler could exert over so many millions of Germans.

Sophie Scholl and her friends teach us that no special lights were required to unmask a perverse regime. All it took was a minimum of intellectual honesty and strength of character and the decision to speak out, not to remain silent in the face of injustice. Silence so often makes us accomplices of iniquity. And when everyone looks the other way and remains silent -for example, when the Jews in the neighborhood disappear-, someone has to take the first step. There is no need for lengthy and brainy parliaments. The texts of La Rosa Blanca stand out for their simplicity. In the face of the institutionalization of barbarism, it was a matter of remembering the most basic things about human dignity and its demands.

Facing up to extreme situations is easier if you have loyal friends. In the germ of La Rosa Blanca is a gathering of students, who met to talk about Philosophy, science and art. Perseverance in doing good is made easier if one lives surrounded by people of integrity, who set a good example.

I recalled the adventures of these heroic young people a few days ago, talking to Pablo Herreros and Mario Tascón during their recent visit to Pamplona. We have here another example of courageous words, questioning the media and political establishment. The blogger Pablo "dared" to criticize the television internship of paying criminals to attend programs. Unexpectedly, the denunciation of La Noria gained notoriety, and his appeal to the companies that financed the program proved effective: the withdrawal of this advertising led to the disappearance of the program and the wrath of Telecinco, which tried to bring Pablo to justice and to jail. Mario Tascón, a pioneer of online journalism in Spain, managed to mobilize tens of thousands of citizens in defense of Pablo, and this social pressure (and the well-known aversion of the companies to the photo on the entrance of the court) led to the withdrawal of the lawsuit.

We live in a society infested by corruption. It remains to be seen whether governments, political parties and social leaders are capable of signing these pacts and, above all, of complying with them once they have been signed. But what we can all do, each in his or her own place, is to speak out, to denounce the corrupt and the delinquent. Resignation that leads to discouragement easily becomes complicity, and the corrupt, tireless and imaginative, take advantage of our passivity. Enduring the subject alone can be difficult. The White Rose was, above all, a group of good friends. Pablo Herreros found the support of Mario Tascón and some others. We should also try to share this desire for honesty, if for no other reason than to have someone close by with whom we can unburden ourselves. From the action of these small groups, from below, it will be possible to straighten the course of this misguided society.