Every once in a while one meets a person who represents history. To look into that person’s face is to be reminded of events that have made a notable difference in the world and continue to resound.

Such was my encounter with Freya von Moltke. Hers is not a household name, at least in most American families, but it reverberated in me when she introduced herself at a party following a concert last month at the New England Conservatory of Music. She had come, as did I, to listen to her sister-in-law, Veronica Jochum of Cambridge, play beautifully the piano music of Gunther Schuller, Brahms, Schubert, and Bach.

Freya von Moltke, now aged 88, is the widow of Helmuth James von Moltke who died in 1945, a hero of conscience at the hands of Hitler’s executioners. He bore a name celebrated in German history  for the military exploits during the Franco-Prussian War and World War I of his ancestors, the two famous Moltke generals.

In 1990 a book appeared called “Letters to Freya 1939-1945” that made available to readers of English the words that her husband sent to her in the years before his imprisonment and those that led up to his death. These letters provide a moving testimony to the man’s spiritual stature (and hers) as he faced the penalty for following conscience in the face of Hitler’s murderous regime.

This saga deserves to be better known because Helmuth was one of the relative few among believing Christians who worked to save Jews and to resist the Nazi atrocities against his country. Recognition of these actions and of her work since that time led Dartmouth College last spring to give an honorary degree to his widow Freya von Moltke.

A distinguished woman in her own right, Freya has preserved her husband’s memory, distributed the books and papers of one of his professors, and founded a publishing company. As she approaches ninety, she serves as a vital link with the German Resistance,  the story of which gives hope in the midst of the darkness of the Nazi era.

Helmuth was a leader of what is known as the Kreisau Circle, a group of Germans who felt anxiously concerned about what was happening to their country. In 1940, he gathered some people who shared his concerns in order to plan what principles should guide Germany after the war had ended.

Meeting in Kreisau (now named Krzyzowa and located in Poland), the  Moltke family estate, these men dealt with issues such as political structure, education, universities, and church/state relations. They had some variety of opinion with regard to a proposed attack on Hitler himself. Moltke usually favored nonviolence but, Freya has told me in a subsequent interview, “He was against silly wars but he was not a pacifist.”

His letters make clear that Helmuth had a deep religious faith that gave structure to his thought and his actions. The New Testament, from which he quotes frequently, provided inspiration in his terrible ordeals. He showed great courage as he faced death knowing that he was acting by the truth. The distortions of the Nazis could not make him lose sight of the scourge that was devastating his own country and much of Europe.

In his last letter Helmuth, as he awaited execution,  wrote: “Dear heart, my life is finished and I can say of myself: He died in the fullness of years and of life’s experience. This doesn’t alter the fact that I would gladly go on living and that I would gladly accompany you a bit further on this earth. But then I would need a new task from God. The task for which God made me is done. If he has another task for me, we shall hear of it. Therefore by all means continue your efforts to save my life, if I survive this day. Perhaps there is another task.”

The former estate of the Moltkes has become a center where young people can come and learn habits of peace and unity. When it was dedicated in 1989, the leaders of German and Poland came together as a Mass was celebrated to mark the beginning of a new era of peace and understanding among nations.

This history, both the terror of it and the new hope, came to my mind as Freya von Moltke introduced herself to me. To me she continues to represent the brave few who stood up against a murderous regime that had no respect at all for human rights and violated universal standards of human behavior.

I was a teenager during World War II, one who followed with rapt attention daily reports in the newspapers about the battles and other horrors of that great struggle. Had I then known of the Moltkes’ heroic efforts to combat Hitler and to plan for a future marked by peace and justice, I would have had reason for being more hopeful that some good might emerge from the catastrophe.

Richard Griffin