Seventy-five years ago Thursday, a group of young German idealists, students who had dared to speak out against the Nazis, were executed by the regime they had defied. Like a flickering flame in the darkness, the White Rose, as its members called themselves, is an inspiring group that never lost its courage — and a frightening reminder of how rare such heroes are.

The group’s founder, Hans Scholl, and his sister Sophie grew up outside Munich. Their father instilled in them a strong moral compass and a religious worldview. Like many his age, Hans joined the Hitler Youth. But he began to have doubts almost immediately: The Nazis did not allow him to sing certain songs, fly certain flags or read Stefan Zweig, his favorite author. He earned a spot as a flag-bearer at the annual Nuremberg Rally and returned disturbed at what he had seen.

Hans wanted to become a doctor, and when he was drafted he was posted as a medic in France. After a tour of duty, he went back to the University of Munich to continue his medical studies. Sophie soon joined him as an undergraduate. Hans read widely — Plato, Socrates, St. Augustine and Pascal — and decorated his dorm room with Modernist French art. He attracted a circle of like-minded students: Alexander Schmorell, the son of a doctor; Christoph Probst, a young father of two toddlers; and Willi Graf, a thoughtful introvert. They soon found an intellectual mentor in Kurt Huber, a professor of philosophy and ardent believer in liberal democracy.

In the summer of 1942, Hans and his friends — inspired by the sermons of the anti-Nazi bishop of Münster — began to distribute typewritten leaflets denouncing the regime. Their language was incandescent. “Every honest German today is ashamed of his government,” Hans wrote, a government that committed “the most horrible of crimes — crimes that indefinitely outdistance every human measure.” The members of the White Rose declared that all those who stood by were complicit and implored all citizens to engage in “passive resistance” to the Nazi state.