jewish resistance, resilience, Defiance, and survival strategies during the Holocaust

1. jewish resistance, resilience, Defiance, and survival strategies during the Holocaust

2. COMMON MISCONCEPTIONS • The Holocaust started the day that Hitler took power (Jan. 1933) • Jewish people were the only victims, and/or: • The Jewish victims were mostly German Jews • Jews constituted a large % of the German population before WWII • There were 11 million total victims of Nazi genocide • Germans who defied Hitler would be immediately arrested, executed • How could it happen? Must be related to “German national character” or to something unique in German history • Jews are a “race” • All camps were more-or-less the same (and were located in Germany) • Hitler was partly Jewish • And finally: “Unfortunately, it was impossible for the Jews to resist”

3. We do not approach the Holocaust for “feel-good” or “uplifting” stories. • It is indeed important to learn that Jews and other oppressed peoples found creative ways to defy their tormentors. • But “resistance” usually came at a high price: This is a memorial to the murdered children of Lidice, Czech Republic, a town that the Nazis virtually wiped from the map in 1942 in reprisal for the assassination of a top Nazi official. Several hundred people were massacred, including roughly 100 children.

4. Definitions of “resistance” • Only through armed force? • any action “motivated by the intention to thwart, limit, or end the exercise of power by the oppressor over the oppressed” • “any group action consciously taken in opposition to known or surmised laws, actions, or intentions directed against the Jews by the Germans and their supporters”

5. “amidah”: Literally, “standing up against” (Hebrew) “smuggling food into ghettos; mutual self-sacrifice within the family to avoid starvation or worse; cultural, educational, religious, and political activities taken to strengthen morale; the work of doctors, nurses, and educators to consciously maintain health and moral fiber to enable individual and group survival…. refusing to budge in the face of brutal force.”

6. jewish resistance, resilience, Defiance, and survival strategies during the Holocaust

7. Clandestine school, religious service in Warsaw

8. - Warsaw Ghetto- Emanuel Ringelblum Archivists at the Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw sort through the portion of the Oneg Shabbat archive retrieved from two milk cans discovered on December 1, 1950, in the ruins of the former ghetto. Oneg Shabbat US Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Yad Vashem Photo Archives

9. Emanuel Ringelblum (1900-1944) “Ringelblum brought together a group of highly dedicated volunteers who recorded every aspect of Jewish life in the ghetto, including a functioning underground medical school, theaters, newspapers and the like. Betrayed to the Germans, he died a martyr’s death, but not before he buried the Oneg Shabbat archives in milk cans. They were unearthed after the war, and constitute a major source for the study of the Holocaust.”

10. Art in Theresienstadt

11. “Spiritual resistance refers to attempts by individuals to maintain humanity and dignity in the face of efforts to degrade them. During the Holocaust, countless Jews—whether in ghettos, concentration camps, or in hiding—engaged in resistance by refusing to allow their spirit to be broken even under profoundly dehumanizing circumstances. Cultural and educational activities, secret archives, and clandestine religious observances—such acts reaffirmed a Jewish sense of community, history, and civilization in the face of physical and spiritual annihilation….” More: http://www.ushmm.org/museum/exhibit/focus/theresienstadt/

12. Sachsenhausen campMartin Rosenberg / Rosebery D’ArgutoAleksander Kulisiewicz

13. Herbert Baum GroupsLeftist Jewish youths in Berlin- origins on German-Jewish Youth movements as well as German working-class organizations- leafleting, graffiti, clandestine cultural gatherings- do not fit into “Jewish resistance” or “socialist resistance” or “German resistance” – or “Zionist resistance” – so therefore they were overlooked during the Cold War years

14. http://herbertbaumgroup.blogspot.com/

15. Obstacles to (armed) Jewish resistance • Little support from surrounding populations • Lack of arms; lack of support from Allies • Nazi reprisals (collective punishment) • Lack of awareness, comprehension of Nazi plans

16. Warsaw Ghetto UprisingApril-May 1943[Don’t confuse with “Warsaw Uprising” of Aug.-Oct. 1944]W. Szpilman, The Pianist; made-for-TV movie: “Uprising” (2001)

17. April 23 letter: “Be well, my friend! Perhaps we will see one another again. The most important thing is that my life's dream has come true. Jewish self-defense in the ghetto has been realized. Jewish retaliation and resistance has become a fact. I have been witness to the magnificent heroic battle of the Jewish fighters.” Mordechai Anielewiczleader of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising

18. Vilna, LithuaniaDec. 1941: “Hitler is plotting to destroy all European Jews. Lithuanians Jews will be the first in line. Let us not be led like sheep to the slaughterhouse. It is right, we are weak and without defense, but the only answer to the enemy is resistance! Brothers! It is better to fall as free fighters than to live by the grace of the murderers! Resist! To the last breath!"

19. Yehuda Bauer, “Patterns of Jewish Response and Resistance” “In the ghettos of Poland and Lithuania, we know of some 17 ghettos where Jews organized some form of resistance. Only in a few places did it result in actual physical resistance. But in a large number of ghettos, especially in what is now Belarus), we estimate that there were some 65 ghettos where there were armed groups, who then escaped into the forests and joined the tens of thousands of Jewish people who tried to resist. They didn't always manage to get arms (and therefore fight), but they tried.”

20. Jewish partisans20,000+ in Polish, Soviet partisan armies Slovakia: 10% were Jewish Yugoslavia: 4,500+ Jews Spanish Civil War of 1936-’39: 6,000 Jewish volunteers fought for the Republic

21. Yugoslavia • The partisan movement in Yugoslavia was the strongest in Europe (with the exception of the USSR). • There were 4,572 Jews listed as partisans, 3,000 of whom where in fighting units. • Since the Jews were recognized as equals due to fierce lack of institutional antisemitism, they did not need to have their own units, and there was nothing Jewish about the make-up of the units in which they served. • One thousand three hundred and eighteen died in the conflict; 150 received the First of the Fighters Medal. Ten Jews were given the National Hero award, the highest medal awarded by the Yugoslavian government. • A number of Jews became high-ranking officers in the partisan movement including General Voja Todorovic [Shmuel Lehrer], who became head of the land forces after the war, and Dr. Rosa Papo, the first woman to become a general in the Yugoslav army. Jews took a key position in establishing the medical corps under the direction of Dr. Herbert Kraus. • http://www.jewishpartisans.org/t_switch.php?pageName=map+main&country=Yugoslavia

22. “Of physicians among the Yugoslavian partisans, the vast majority were Jewish. Dr. Rosa Papo, a Yugoslavian Jewish partisan, served as the first woman general in the Yugoslavian Army.”The Holocaust Chroniclehttp://www.holocaustchronicle.org/Index.html

23. Jewish partisans in central and eastern Europe Jewish partisans in Slovak national uprising, 1944 A member of the Kovno underground retrieves weapons from a well

24. The Bielski Brothers

25. Treblinka, August 1943 Sobibor, October 1943 Auschwitz, October 1944 1944 photo of survivors of Sobibor uprising Armed resistance in the Death Camps

26. General conclusions: • Options extremely limited; nonetheless, Jews resisted disproportionately • “resistance” should not be defined only by armed struggle • Not a single “resistance” – many groups, forms • Rescue, self-help were also forms of resistance • Most of those who formed resistance organizations were young, and often came from leftist traditions • “success” of resistance was in thwarting the Nazi goal of dehumanizing, degrading its victims • Proved that human solidarity still possible, rather than the “pitiless struggle of all against all” [Primo Levi] that was consciously fostered by Nazis in campsand ghettos • Levi’s friend Leonardo: his example of decency buoyed Primo’s spirits; reminded him that a civilized world was possible; and thereby aided his survival

27. Useful Web sitesmy email: jcox73@uncc.edumy page: http://johncox.typepad.com/dr_js_page/ Bibliography from the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, aka USHMM (Washington, DC): • http://www.ushmm.org/research/center/lerman/bibliography/ “Daring to Resist: Teachers’ Guide Bibliography” from PBS: • http://www.pbs.org/daringtoresist/tgbibliography.html An excellent pamphlet from the USHMM – perhaps the best concise overview of anti-Nazi resistance: • http://www.ushmm.org/education/foreducators/resource/pdf/resistance.pdf (or google “ushmm resistance”) Two other excellent, concise pamphlets: • http://www.ushmm.org/research/center/publications/occasional/1997-02/paper.pdf (or google “Tec ushmm resistance”) • http://www.gdw-berlin.de/fileadmin/bilder/publ/beitraege/BPauker-e.pdf (or google “GdW Paucker resistance”) “Myths & misconceptions about the Holocaust”: • http://www.ilholocaustmuseum.org/pages/holocaust_misconceptions/65.php (or google “holocaust misconceptions illinois”)

29. Faye SchulmanA Partisan’s Memoir: Woman of the Holocaust by Faye Schulman (1995) http://www.jewishpartisans.org/

30. “The biggest resistance that we could have done to the Germans was to survive.” - Eta Wrobel • In early 1940, Eta started work as a clerk in an employment agency. • Soon she began her resistance by creating false identity papers for Jews. In October 1942, the Eta’s ghetto was liquidated and the Jews were forced into concentration camps. Eta and her father escaped to the woods. • Eta then helped organize an exclusively Jewish partisan unit of close to eighty people. • At one point Eta was shot in the leg and dug the bullet out of her leg with a knife. The unit set mines to hinder German movement and to cut off supply routes. Unlike the other seven women in the unit, Eta refused to cook or clean. Her dynamic personality and military skills allowed for this exception. “Visit www.jewishpartisans.org for more about Eta Wrobel, including seven videos of her reflecting on her time as a partisan.”

31. SPANISH Jews & other political prisonersmore than 1,200 in Buchenwald; 7,000 in Mauthausen

32. Some other readings Reading: Charles Kotkowski, Remnant (unpublished memoir; posted on Moodle; also available here: http://migs.concordia.ca/memoirs/kotkowsky/kot_mem.html) James C. Scott, from Weapons of the Weak, in Stephen Duncombe, ed., Cultural Resistance Reader (1987), pp. 89-96 Robin D.G. Kelley, from Race Rebels, in Duncombe, ed., pp. 96-99 Reading: Robert Satloff, “The Arabs Watched Over the Jews” Irene Tomaszewski and TeciaWerbowski, Code Name Żegota: Rescuing Jews in Occupied Poland, 1942-1945 (2010), Agnes Grunwald-Spier, The Other Schindlers (2011) Eyal Press, Beautiful Souls: The Courage and Conscience of Ordinary People in Extraordinary Times (2013), pp. 11-46 • Reading: Mark Mazower, Hitler’s Empire (2008), pp. 471-521 • “Count Helmuth James von Moltke’s Memo to Hans Wilbrandt and Alexander Rüstow on Conditions in Germany and the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising (July 9, 1943)”: http://germanhistorydocs.ghi-dc.org/sub_document.cfm?document_id=1517 • White Rose leaflets: http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/revolt/wrleaflets.html • Brief article about the White Rose: http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/rose.html

33. Victims of Nazi persecution and genocide Jews • 5.9 million Soviet POWs • 3 – 3.5 million Ethnic Poles • 1.8–2 million Soviet civilians • 4.5 – 8 m.; 12-14 m. total killed Roma and Sinti (Romanies, aka “Gypsies”) • 200,000 – 500,000 Disabled • 200,000–250,000 Homosexuals • 5,000–15,000 sent to camps; high death rate (50-60%) Jehovah'sWitnesses • 1,600–5,200 Statistics in this column are from ushmm.org; two different entries give somewhat different figures for Jehovah’s Witnesses and also for Romanies

34. Willem Arondeus (Netherlands, 1943)Last message: “Let it be known that homosexuals are not cowards”

35. Janusz Korczakdescription from memoir “The Pianist” One day, around 5th August, when I had taken a brief rest from work and was walking down Gęsia Street, I happened to see Janusz Korczak and his orphans leaving the ghetto. The evacuation of the Jewish orphanage run by Janusz Korczak had been ordered for that morning. The children were to have been taken away alone. He had the chance to save himself, and it was only with difficulty that he persuaded the Germans to take him too. He had spent long years of his life with children and now, on this last journey, he could not leave them alone. He wanted to ease things for them. He told the orphans they were going out in to the country, so they ought to be cheerful. At last they would be able to exchange the horrible suffocating city walls for meadows of flowers, streams where they could bathe, woods full of berries and mushrooms. He told them to wear their best clothes, and so they came out into the yard, two by two, nicely dressed and in a happy mood. The little column was led by an SS man who loved children, as Germans do, even those he was about to see on their way into the next world. He took a special liking to a boy of twelve, a violinist who had his instrument under his arm. The SS man told him to go to the head of the procession of children and play – and so they set off. When I met them in Gęsia Street, the smiling children were singing in chorus, the little violinist was playing for them and Korczak was carrying two of the smallest infants, who were beaming too, and telling them some amusing story. I am sure that even in the gas chamber, as the Zyklon B gas was stifling childish throats and striking terror instead of hope into the orphans' hearts, the Old Doctor must have whispered with one last effort, ‘it's all right, children, it will be all right’. So that at least he could spare his little charges the fear of passing from life to death

36. Greensboro Sit Ins, 1960