Vladimir Kara-Murza and Alexei Navalny are different men, but they have a lot in common. They are fantastically brave. They have survived attempts by the Russian state to murder them with poison. (Kara-Murza survived two such attempts.) They are political prisoners — two of the most prominent in Russia. They are kept in brutal conditions, and are in ill health. Each is alarmingly gaunt.

Kara-Murza is undergoing a closed-door trial for treason. (He criticized the Ukraine war.) The state keeps making up charges against Navalny. It’s obvious that the authorities want to keep harassing him, legally, until he does them the favor of dying in prison.

The film director Daniel Roher made a documentary about Navalny. Last Sunday, it won an Academy Award. Present at the ceremony were Navalny’s wife, Yulia, and their children, Dasha and Zakhar. Said Yulia from the stage,

“My husband is in prison just for telling the truth. My husband is in prison just for defending democracy. Alexei, I am dreaming of the day you will be free and our country will be free. Stay strong, my love.”

In prison, Navalny learned about the Academy Award. I will quote from a news account:

The opposition leader was on a remote link from jail to a court hearing . . .

The judge had refused to allow his lawyer to speak to his client, so attorney Alexander Fedulov wrote ‘Oscar’ on a piece of paper. Navalny could not see it and asked the lawyer to speak. ‘I can’t see it, tell me,’ he said.

Fedulov defied the judge and said: ‘Oscar! You won an Oscar yesterday.’

A smiling but gaunt-looking Navalny said: ‘Ahh. Fine. Well, it’s not really me, though. Thank you.’

Look, Putin and his men may succeed in killing Navalny and Kara-Murza, one way or another. But let it not happen without some of us on the outside giving a damn.

• As the years pass, I am more in awe of the White Rose, that small group in Germany who opposed the Nazis. The group was centered on the University of Munich. They distributed leaflets and scrawled graffiti — “Down with Hitler!”

One of their leaflets read,

Isn’t it true that every honest German is ashamed of his government these days? Who among us can imagine the degree of shame that will come upon us and upon our children when the veils fall from our faces and the awful crimes that infinitely exceed any human measure are exposed to the light of day?”

I am reminded of what some Russians said, in the days after February 24, 2022: We will feel ashamed of this forever, like the Germans. (Of course, some will, some won’t — as with the Germans.)

Another White Rose leaflet read,

We will not keep silent. We are your guilty conscience. The White Rose will not let you alone.

Many, many times, I have had occasion to quote José Martí, the Cuban independence hero: “When there are many men who lack honor, there are always others who have within themselves the honor of many men.”

Leaders of the White Rose were beheaded. Today, people may think of such barbarism as a Middle Eastern or Islamo-fascist phenomenon. Within living memory (still), the German state was doing it. They beheaded, or guillotined, about 5,000.

Hans Scholl, a co-founder of the White Rose, was executed this way. Before the blade fell, he said, “Long live freedom!”

Traute Lafrenz was the last of them — the last surviving member of the White Rose. She has died at 103. For an obit by Alan Cowell in the New York Times, go here.

She was born in 1919, in Hamburg. In the Nazi years, she was of course arrested, and she could have been executed, like her friends. She was in prison, awaiting trial — and the war ended. The Americans liberated the prison.

Ms. Lafrenz emigrated to America, where she lived in San Francisco; Evanston, Ill.; and elsewhere. She was a doctor. She also ran a school for special-needs kids.

On her hundredth birthday, the German government awarded her its Order of Merit. According to the citation, she “belonged to the few who, in the face of the crimes of National Socialism, had the courage to listen to the voice of their conscience and rebel against the dictatorship and the genocide of the Jews. She is a heroine of freedom and humanity.”

My God, they were great. Were they representative of the German people? No, no. (I appreciate the word “few” in the above-quoted citation.) Are Vladimir Kara-Murza, Alexei Navalny, and the other political prisoners representative of the Russian people? Probably not.

But that’s a big part of what makes them great, right? Almost everybody goes with the flow — but not a few.

• On Twitter this week, the historian Michael Beschloss circulated the U.S. immigration form of Albert Einstein:

A couple of observations: “Complexion: Fair.” “Race: Hebrew.” “Nationality: German.” Those three things could occasion hours of discussion — and many books.

Don’t you agree?

• I am cross at the Oscars: “In a first since 1961, the Oscars carpet will not be red.” Nature has ordained a red carpet. That’s the way it has been all my life, so that’s what Nature has ordained, right?

Also, I think of ancient wisdom: “When it is not necessary to change, it is necessary not to change” (Lucius Cary, 2nd Viscount Falkland, c. 1610–1643).

• Foreman for Academy Board:

Jonathan Foreman (an old friend of mine) is an Anglo-American writer. A historian. A journalist. A lawyer. A film critic. Etc. His father was Carl Foreman, who wrote, among other films, High Noon and The Bridge on the River Kwai.

• Care for a little music? For a review of Falstaff, Verdi’s opera, at the Metropolitan Opera, go here. Some interesting issues come up.

• Stick with music, but of a different variety. I found a piece by Maria Clara Cobo in the New York Times fascinating: “‘Phantom’ Ends. For Musicians, So Does the Gig of a Lifetime.” The subheading goes as follows: “Broadway’s longest running musical, set to close next month, has been a source of stability for orchestra members, many of whom have grown up with the show.” I should say. Since 1987 (when rehearsals for the show started).

What were you doing in 1987? (Speaking for myself, I can’t remember.)

• Let’s have a little language. An article about a golf tournament said, “Day felt badly for both of them, but tried to keep his focus.” No, no, no: Day felt bad. There was nothing wrong with his sense of touch, presumably. (Pro golfers have great touch.) He could tell stone from sand from spikes. No, he felt bad — the same as you feel sad, not sadly; happy, not happily; angry, not angrily. You need an adjective there, not an adverb.

File under “Lost Causes.”

• Pat Schroeder, the well-known congresswoman from Colorado, has died at 82. The obit by Katharine Q. Seelye in the New York Times is here. I have commented on Schroeder, politically, before; I may again at some point. But not now. She was a liberal Democrat, I was a conservative Republican — there you go.

But I had two encounters with her personally, and maybe I could relate those.

When I lived in D.C., long time ago, I hit golf balls at Hains Point, regularly. One day, Pat Schroeder was there — which I thought was kind of neat. I mean, it was so unexpected. She was supposed to be on C-SPAN. Or Meet the Press. And here she was, at Hains Point, like people.

Years later, I encountered her at a conference — this was the summer of 2004. Barack Obama was running for the Senate in Illinois. He was so new — so new on the scene — people weren’t quite sure of the order of his names: Was it “Barack Obama” or “Obama Barack”? Pat Schroeder and some of her friends were oohing and aahing over this guy — and at his prospects in national politics.

Damned if this Barack Obama was not elected president four short years later. Schroeder et al. had given me a foretaste of the hubbub surrounding him.

Are you sick of political trivia? So am I. Thank you for joining me, and have a good one.

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