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Resistance Movements During the Holocaust. A group portrait of some of the participants in the uprising at the Sobibor extermination camp. Poland, August 1944, US Holocaust Memorial Museum . BELL-RINGER.
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Resistance Movements During the Holocaust A group portrait of some of the participants in the uprising at the Sobibor extermination camp. Poland, August 1944, US Holocaust Memorial Museum.
BELL-RINGER • Imagine that you were a citizen of a country or resident of a town/village/city under Nazi occupation. What things would be needed to resist the oppressive Nazi regime? What factors might stand in the way of this resistance?
By definition, “resistance” means organized, armed opposition. • During the time period of the Holocaust, this definition of resistance was the response of only a few thousand of the Holocaust victims. • Nonetheless, the men and women who fought against the Germans did so by joining partisan forces in the forests, organizing attacks from ghetto hideouts, as well as planning and executing assaults in the Nazi death camps. • Most scholars agree that every Nazi-occupied country in Europe had some kind of resistance movement. • Each country evolved its own distinct kinds of underground organizations. These different organizations were shaped by the type and degree of German oppression against countries or groups of people. • Underground movements were also affected by the social, cultural, economic, political, and physical features within these countries. • Despite their sacrifices, these resistance movements did not really shorten World War II by any measureable extent.
Some general comments can provide an overview of the enormous obstacles the Jews had to overcome: • The vastly superior nature of the German military. • The Nazis’ total commitment to the destruction of the Jews. • Psychologically, peoples’ disbelief that Hitler was really trying to eliminate all of the Jews of Europe. • Peoples’ desire to live resulted in the denial of the truth even when this was contrary to the facts. • The elders of the Jewish councils did not comprehend that Hitler was a completely different foe than those they had encountered in the past. • The Nazi use of “collective guilt” to punish even the slightest resistance. The actions of one or a few had disastrous punishments for the masses. • The lack of support from the native population, even if an uprising or escape was initially successful.
Select Cases of Resistance I • The Warsaw Ghetto uprising of May-June of 1943. Jews in the ghetto rose in armed revolt after rumors that the Germans would deport the remaining ghetto inhabitants to the Treblinka killing center. • It took the Germans a full month to fully pacify the armed resistance, which often took the form of small arms, Molotov cocktails, and hand grenades.
Jewish homes in flames after the Nazis set residential buildings on fire in an effort to force Jews out of hiding during the Warsaw ghetto uprising. Poland, April 19-May 16, 1943.
German soldiers arrest Jews during the Warsaw ghetto uprising. Poland, May 1943.
Select Cases of Resistance II • Thousands of young Jews resisted by escaping from the ghettos into the forests. There they joined Soviet underground units or formed separate underground units to harass the German occupiers. • One famous underground forest-dwelling resistance group were led by the Bielski brothers, who spent more than two years in the forests of German-occupied Poland, helping over 1,000 Jews survive the war. • Best depicted in the 2008 film Defiance with Daniel Craig!
Select Cases of Resistance III • On October 14, 1943, an uprising took place at the Sobibor extermination camp in eastern Poland. A joint Soviet/Polish Jew underground group planned the uprising and attacked the SS guards with stolen weapons, allowing 300 men and women to break out of the camp, of whom 47 ultimately survived the war.
