- Fabu: Mildred Fish-Harnack.
She still speaks.
What speaks strongest today is Mildred Fish-Harnack's intelligence
as an early 20th Century Wisconsin woman,
educated at UW-Madison with a B.A in 1925,
an M.A. in 1926 in English
when most women remained on the farm or inside homes.
What speaks strongest today is Mildred Fish-Harnack's global perspective
as a Milwaukee, Wisconsin woman,
married to German intellectual Arvid Harnack,
earned a PhD in literature at the University of Giessen
when most Americans never left their neighborhoods.
What speaks strongest today is Mildred Fish-Harnack's determination
as an academic Wisconsin woman
committed to freedom of thought and faith,
anti-Nazi resister through the Red Orchestra,
when most people underestimated the evil of Adolph Hitler.
What speaks strongest today is Mildred Fish-Harnack's courage
as a grieved Wisconsin woman,
husband and friends in the resistance killed,
she was tortured, imprisoned, beheaded,
when she was the only American woman executed.
What speaks strongest today is Mildred Fish-Harnack's heart-felt decision
as a transplanted Wisconsin woman
to love Germany so much and so well
that though dead, her life still speaks loudly.
[applause]