regime's occasional response of not meeting protester demands while nevertheless responding with "flexibility" and "leniency" rather than repressing or punishing protesters. That protest, however, represented only local opinion rather than the nationwide anxiety Galen represented, stirred up by the Euthanasia program the regime refused to acknowledge. Another indication that civilians realized the potential of public protest within a regime so concerned about morale and unity, is from Margarete Sommers of the Catholic Welfare Office in the Berlin Diocese. Following the Rosenstrasse Protest of late winter 1943. Sommers, who shared with colleagues an assumption that "the people could mobilize against the regime on behalf of specific values," wrote that the women had succeeded through "loudly voiced protests". The protest began as a smattering of "racial" German women seeking information about their Jewish husbands who had just been incarcerated in the course of the massive roundup of Berlin Jews in advance of the Nazi Party's declaration that Berlin was "free of Jews." As they continued their protest over the course of a week, a powerful feeling of solidarity developed. Police guards repeatedly scattered the women, gathered in groups of up to hundreds, with shouts of "clear the street or we'll shoot." As the police repeatedly failed to shoot, some protesters began to think their action might prevail. One said that if she had first calculated whether a protest could have succeeded, she would have stayed home. Instead, "we acted from the heart," she said, adding that the women were capable of such courageous action because their husbands were in grave danger. Some 7,000 of the last Jews in Berlin arrested at this time were sent to Auschwitz. At Rosenstrasse, however, the regime relented and released Jews with "racial" family members. Even intermarried Jews who had been sent to Auschwitz work camps were returned. Another potential indication that German civilians realized the power of public protest was in Dortmund-Hörde in April 1943. According to an SD Report from July 8 of 1943, in the early afternoon of April 12, 1943, an army captain arrested a Flak soldier in Dortmund-Hörde because of an insolent salute. The townsfolk looking on took his side. A crowd formed of three to four hundred comprised essentially of women. The crowd shouted lines such as "Gebt uns unsere Männer wieder" or "give us our men back" which suggest some in the crowd were aware of the protest on Rosenstrasse.