(Student Writing C2.1) Heroes

Hans and Sophie Scholl

By Leo

The siblings Hans and Sophie Scholl rose to public awareness as members of a student club called “Weiße Rose” which literally means white rose. They studied at the University of Munich and were active in a club of the resistance movement against the Nazi regime during World War Two. After publishing leaflets criticizing the war and Hitler’s regime they were executed. Since the post-war period they have become symbolic figures representing the humanistic resistance against the totalitarian regime.

Hans and Sophie grew up in the small Bavarian town of “Ulm”. In their teenage years, both were at first, like many others, believers in the Nazi propaganda. This changed very quickly, however. They left the Hitler Youth and became members of a youth club opposed to the Hitler Youth, which was illegal during the Third Reich. Together with others they were detained, but released soon after and given amnesty. Nevertheless, they turned their backs on Nazism.

At this point both turned to religion and philosophy. They were required to attend “Reichsarbeitsdienst”, an obligatory work programme for adolescents.  Later, they started studying at the LMU Munich. Hans, two years older, founded together with other students the “Weiße Rose” beginning to give out critical leaflets. His sister joined the club later, against her brother’s will.

On the 18^th February 1943 they were observed throwing leaflets into crowds in the entrance hall of the University. Caretaker Jakob Schmid was a member of the SA, a paramilitary Nazi group, who delivered them to the rectory. They were in turn handed over to the Gestapo, the secret regime police. Four days later they were sentenced to death by guillotine. The executioner, Johann Reichhart, later said Sophie was the bravest person he had ever witnessed, citing her last words as “Long live freedom!”.


Read the text carefully, then retell the story to your group using the words below as prompts: 

Siblings
white rose
World War Two
leaflets
executed
symbolic figures
believers
Hitler Youth
observed
Caretaker 
Gestapo
guillotine
executioner
Long live freedom!

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Astrid Lindgren

By David

Astrid Lindgren was born on the 14th of November, 1907 in a small town in Denmark called Vimmerby. She is well known all over the world for her writings and fictions. She had two sisters, Stina and Ingegerd and a brother, Gunnar Ericsson, who eventually became a member of the Swedish parliament.

After finishing her studies, Astrid took a job with a local newspaper in her hometown. She had an affair with the chief editor, a married man who eventually proposed to her after she became pregnant. Astrid declined and moved to the capital Stockholm where she trained to become a typist and a stenographer. In due time she gave birth to her son Lars in Copenhagen, Denmark and left him in the care of a foster family until she was able to take care of him on her own. In 1932 she married her boss at the Swedish Royal Automotive Club, Sture Lindgren, and two years later she had her second child, Karin.

Lindgren wrote around 40 books, plays and songs. The most well-known one is Pippi Longstocking. Pippi was in fact named by Lindgren’s daughter Karin, then 9 years old (like Pippi). Karin had asked her mother to tell her a get-well story while she was sick, and thus was born the red-haired, freckled, unconventional and superhumanly strong Pippi. Pippi is playful and unpredictable, and able to lift her horse onehanded. She often makes fun of unreasonable adults, especially if they are pompous and condescending. Her anger comes out in exceptional circumstances, such as when a man ill-treats his horse.

Pippi Longstocking was actually rejected at first by Sweden’s largest publisher Bonnier Publishers in 1944. The publisher’s feared it was too controversial. However, it was published a year later by Rabén and Sjögren and has since been translated into 70 languages and adapted into several films and television series.

On the 28th of January, 2002, Astrid Lindgren passed away in her Stockholm home at the age of 94. Over her life she received numerous awards in literature and many awards today are named after her. "I write for the child in me", Lindgren once said. And even though she is no longer with us, her books will be read as long as children are born who come to learn the joys of reading - and of life.

Read the text carefully, then retell the story to your group using the words below as prompts: 

1907
Vimmerby
local newspaper
chief editor
proposed
pregnant
declined
Stockholm
40
Pippi Longstocking
a get-well story
rejected

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Nólsoyar Páll

By Boas

Born in 1766 in Nólsoy, Nólsoyar Páll is considered one of the greatest national heroes of the Faroe Islands. He is well remembered both for his rebellious ballads and his defiant opposition to Danish officers at a time when Denmark had trade monopoly on the islands. Páll's efforts had great influence in opening the islands up to direct trading, which had far reaching benefits. 

Páll developed an interest in sailing at a young age, and when he turned twenty he became a sailor and went to both America and Asia. After travelling far and wide for more than ten years, he returned to the islands and bought a reliable ship which he intended to use for fishing and trading. With much trial and error and much tension between himself and the Danish officers, Páll made a name for himself. One of his achievements was bringing a smallpox vaccination back to the Faroes. 

This was during the Napoleonic wars, a time of great famine in the Faroes due to the British blockade of Denmark. Páll got around the blockade by trading directly with the British to stave off famine. However, his ship was seized by the British the following year when he tried buying corn from the Danes. His ship was badly damaged, but he was eventually released and given a replacement ship, The North Star. Unfortunately for him, The North Star was lost at sea on the voyage home and no one ever heard from him ever again. 

The British finally lifted the blockade in 1810, ending the famine. Páll's legacy and poetry lived on though. His best known work is "Fuglakvæði" (Ballad of the Birds), in which the poet as an oystercatcher warns the smaller birds about the larger birds of prey (the Danish authorities). Today the oystercatcher is the national bird of the Faroe Islands. The Danish trade monopoly was abolished in 1856.

Read the text carefully, then retell the story to your group using the words below as prompts: 

1766
Faroe Islands
ballads
Denmark
America and Asia
ten years
a smallpox vaccination
Napoleonic wars
famine
British blockade 
trading directly
seized
The North Star 
lost at sea
1810
Ballad of the Birds
1856

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Felix Baumgartner

By Iris

Austrian dare devil sky diver Felix Baumgartner was born in Salzburg on April 20, 1969, to Eva and Felix Baumgartner. He has one brother, Gerard Baumgartner. Felix began skydiving as a teenager. He has since made high jumps from landmarks around the world and has "flown" across the English Channel after jumping from an airplane. In 2012 Baumgartner set a world record with a skydive from a capsule almost 40 km high in the stratosphere.

When he was a child, Baumgartner imagined (dreamed of?) flying through the sky. He began skydiving at the age of 16 and gained his “aero-acrobatic” abilities during his time in the Austrian military. Baumgartner worked as a mechanic and a motocross driver, but his main ambition was to establish himself as a record-breaking skydiver. In 1988 he began performing skydiving exhibitions for the beverage company Red Bull Salzburg, which became his sponsor later on.

In 1999 Baumgartner set a new world record for parachute jumps when he leapt from the landmark Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Later that year he jumped from the Pirelli skyscraper in Milan in Italy. In 2007 he tackled the Taipei tower in Taipei, Taiwan.

But his most significant record was set on October 14, 2012 when he jumped from a capsule at an altitude of approximately 39 km and at a top speed of 1360 km/h. With the sponsorship of the Red Bull Stratos project team Felix Baumgartner spent five years preparing for this effort. He was coached by his childhood hero, Joseph Kittinger, the United States Air Force pilot who set a record in 1960 by jumping from a plane at an altitude of 31.3 km, along with other experts. On the date of his record-breaking jump, he was monitored by a mission-control team of 300 engineers, scientists and physicians at an airfield in Roswell, New Mexico. After a total of nine minutes, he touched the ground safely and became the first human to travel faster than the speed of sound without an aircraft or spacecraft.

After his record breaking jump he announced his retirement as an extreme athlete and is now working as a rescue helicopter pilot in California and in the Austrian Alps.

Read the text carefully, then retell the story to your group using the words below as prompts: 

1969
40 km
16
Kuala Lumpur
Milan
Taipei
Joseph Kittinger
31.3 km
New Mexico
nine minutes
speed of sound
rescue helicopter pilot  

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Franz Kafka

By Lisa

Franz Kafka was born into a middle-class, German-speaking Jewish family on July 3, 1883 in the Austrian-Hungarian Monarchie. The eldest of six children, Franz had two younger brothers who died in infancy and three younger sisters (Gabriele (1889–1941), Valerie (1890–1942), Ottilie (1892–1943). All of them died in concentration camps in World War Two.

All his life Kafka struggled to come to terms with his domineering father, Hermann Kafka (1852–1931), who he described as a huge ill-tempered domestic tyrant. On many occasions Hermann directed his anger towards his son and was disapproving of his escape into literature. Kafka's mother, Julie (1856—1934), was the daughter of a prosperous brewer and was better educated than her husband.

Education

From 1889 to 1893, Franz attended the Deutsche Knabenschule, a boys elementary school in Prague. He was sent to German schools, not Czech, demonstrating his father's desire for social advancement. His Jewish upbringing was limited mostly to his bar mitzvah and accompanying his father to the synagogue four times a year. In 1901 he graduated from the Altstädter Gymnasium, the rigorous classics-oriented secondary school with eight grade levels. He did well in school, taking classes like Latin, Greek and history.

After secondary school Kafka went on to Charles Ferdinand University, where began to study chemistry, but switched after two weeks to Law. In the end of his first year, he met another student a year younger than he was, Max Brod, who would become a close friend throughout his life, together with the journalist Felix Weltsch, who also studied law.

Kafka obtained the degree of Doctor of Law on June 18, 1906 and performed an obligatory year of unpaid service as law clerk for the civil and criminal courts.

Work

At the end of 1907 Kafka started working in a huge Italian insurance company, where he stayed for nearly a year. His correspondence during that period witnesses that he was unhappy with his working time schedule - from 8 p.m until 6 a.m - as it made it extremely difficult for him to concentrate on his writing.

He often referred to his job as insurance officer as a "bread job". However, the series of promotions he received during his career prove that he was a hardworking employee. Likewise, Kafka was also committed to his literary work.

Later Years

In 1912, at the home of his lifelong friend Max Brod, Kafka met Felice Bauer, who lived in Berlin. Over the next five years they corresponded a great deal, met occasionally, and twice were engaged to be married. Their relationship finally ended in 1917.

In 1917, Kafka began to suffer from tuberculosis, which would result in frequent convalescence during which he was supported by his family, most notably his sister Ottla. In 1923, he briefly moved to Berlin in the hope of distancing himself from his family's influence to concentrate on his writing. In Berlin, he lived with Dora Diamant, a 25-year-old kindergarten teacher from an orthodox Jewish family, who was independent enough to have escaped her past in the ghetto. Dora became his lover, and influenced Kafka's interest in the Talmud - a book of Jewish law.

It is generally agreed that Kafka suffered from clinical depression and social anxiety throughout his entire life. He also suffered from migraines, insomnia, constipation, boils, and other ailments, all usually brought on by excessive stresses and strains.

On top of that, his tuberculosis worsened; he returned to Prague, was admitted to Dr. Hoffmann Sanatorium for treatment, where he died on June 3, 1924.


Read the text carefully, then retell the story to your group using the words below as prompts: 

German-speaking Jewish
1883
father
Prague
German schools
Law
insurance company
"bread job"
Felice Bauer
Berlin
tuberculosis
kindergarten teacher
clinical depression
ailments
1924

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Eddy Merckx

By Mare

Edouard (Eddy) Louis Joseph Merckx was born in Meesnel-Kiezegem on the 17th of June 1945. In September of 1946 his family moved to Woluwe-Saint-Pierre in Brussels to take over a small grocery store. As a child, Eddy was very active and played several sports such as table tennis, boxing and basketball. However, at the early age of four, he already knew that he wanted to be a cyclist. He began cycling at the age of three and rode his bike to school every day. He and his friends always looked up to Stan Ockers, and often imitated him on their bikes.

Merckx bought his first racing license at the age of sixteen and competed in several local races. After 13 races, he finally won one and the following winter he started training with coach Felicien Vervaecke. His second victory was in 1962 in a kermis race. Because Merckx devoted so much of his time to cycling, his school grades started to fall. But when he won the Belgian Amateur Road Race he dropped out of school. At the end of the season he had won a total of 23 times. Merckx then went on to compete in the 1964 Olympics – placing 12th – and winning the World Championship, all the while still an amateur cyclist.

In 1965, at 17 years of age, he first started a season as a professional cyclist with Solo–Superia. In 1967 Merckx won the Road World Championship, in doing so earning the right to wear the rainbow jersey as world champion. Following this first complete win, he would go on to win several Tours de France, Giro and Vuelta. Also, he set eight records in the cycling world.

Since retiring from cycling, he has opened up a store in Brussels, where he produces bikes. Although the company has come close to bankruptcy several times, the brand is regarded highly and is used by several top racers.

All in all, Merckx is nowadays regarded as the greatest and most successful cyclist of all time, earning him nicknames such as ‘the cannibal’ and ‘il mostro’ (the monster, Italian). He will earn several honours; he was made a baron by Royal Decree, became Commander of the Legion of Honour and Officer in the Order of Leopold II. To keep it short here’s a list some of his records in order to give a general idea of his achievements:

•          most career victories by a professional cyclist: 525

•          most days with the yellow jersey in the Tour de France: 96

•          most stage victories in the Tour de France: 34

•          the only cyclist to have won the general classification, points classification and mountains classification in the same Tour de France (1969)

Merckx won 28 classic races, with Paris-Tours being the only race he did not win. The closest he ever came was in 1973, placing sixth. A lesser Belgian rider, Noël van Tyghem did win it in 1972 and said: “Between us, I and Eddy Merckx have won every classic that can be won. I won Paris-Tours, Merckx won all the rest.” Merckx is regarded highly not only in the cycling world, but also throughout Belgium; there is not a single Belgian who has never heard of Eddy Merckx. In a poll held by magazine HUMO in 2004 asking “Who do you think should be named the Greatest Belgian?”, Merckx won. To honour Eddy Mercks, the Tour de France 2017, started in Brussels.

Read the text carefully, then retell the story to your group using the words below as prompts: 

1945
Brussels
grocery store
school
1964 Olympics
17
Tours de France
store
bankruptcy
the cannibal
poll
Tour de France 2017

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