Holocaust Resistance: The Largest Jews Revolt Holocaust Resistance

Resistance in the mist of WWII and the Holocaust occurred all across Europe and the occupied territories of Nazi Germany. The three groups I’m going to discuss are Zegota, White Rose, and Le Chambon-sur-Lignon. Each one of these came from three very different areas, but they each resisted Nazi ideology. Each group has their own reason for why they decided to take a stand, whether morally, politically, or religious reasons and while there are differences between the groups many of them have overlapping reasons for their desire to resist.

Throughout the Holocaust, Jews organized resistance movements in ghettos, concentration, and extermination camps. Although they had virtually no weapons and faced one of the largest arsenals in the world, the Jewish people fought for their honor and freedom. Without any hope victory and in the face of death, resistance fighters found the courage to take on evil in its purest form. Their efforts must not go in vein; to them we must accord our respect. This is a brief testimony of their fight against the Nazi regime.

When someone mentions the Holocaust, the image that come to the minds of most people is that of the starving Jews in concentration camps. Most people automatically think of the horrors that the Jews went through, while some may even wonder how something as horrible as the Holocaust could have been done. Not many people stop to think about how the Jews resisted. Jews resisted in small acts almost every day. Whether it was something as small as praying or as large as blowing up a supply train, Jews were able to block the Nazis from completely wiping out the Jewish culture. One particular group of Jews who resisted were the partisans. The partisans were armed groups formed to fight secretly against an occupying force. The Partisans resisted Nazi

“You call me misbeliever, cutthroat dog, And spet upon my Jewish gaberdine” (Shakespeare 34). Groups and people have helped resist during the Holocaust which helped the affected people and it may be important for young people to learn from these responses.The Armee Juive were a French Jewish partisan group during the Holocaust who participated in the 1944 uprising and smuggled money from Switzerland to help Jews escape and hide into neutral Spain. The Jewish resistance groups were the most direct form of Jewish opposition against the Nazis during the Holocaust. Attacking the German military trucks and trains, the Armee Juive conducted missions to sabotage Nazis and rescue Jews. The warsaw ghetto uprisings where hundreds of Jews fought against Germans and disobeyed them is an example of a resistance effort that was employed during the Holocaust.

Many people know of the Holocaust and its outcome, but what of its resisters? Resistance in this time was risky because of the dangers of the Nazis finding, torturing, and killing the resisters. Despite these dangers, man people would still resist, armed, unarmed, and verbally. Many of the resisters were not caught because they were indirectly affecting the progress of the “Final Solution” as it was referred to. One such way was to convince others to resist and fight while you get others to aid in the fight. Another was displayed by Yvett Farnoux when “She was in charge of finding safe houses and food for resistance fighters, their families, and Jews in hiding” (Davison).

The year is 1998, not only was I, Carleigh Irgens, born August 21 in Miles City, Montana but some other big and exciting things happened! Three of the most important events were, The Holocaust History Project was founded, John Gacy; The Clown Killer was convicted of killing young boys and even the death of Paul McCartney’s wife, Linda McCartney.

During World War II and the Holocaust, many people wondered why Jewish people did not fight back against the Nazi’s. But what many people do not know is that about 30,000 Jewish people resisted and fought back against the Nazi command (Resistance). The Holocaust started in 1939 and ended in 1945. The Jews were forced into ghettos and were ostracized from the world by a wall or barbed wire fence. There were also concentration or death camps where after the war ended, almost no Jews survived. During the Holocaust, the Jewish people engaged in both armed and unarmed resistance in order to preserve their faith, morale, and humanity.

During the Holocaust, there were many resistance groups and people. The Jewish resistance, however, started in 1942. The people in the Jewish resistance consisted of people who were against the German and Nazis’ ways. There were not many Jews who knew what was going on or where they were going when they got on those trains but the people who knew tried to resist. They would either run away from the trains or attack the captors. Others committed suicide that way they didn’t even go to the camp to get tortured. The people that would disobey the Nazis would get a punishment, which may include additional work to more extreme, execute on the spot. ("The White Rose - A Lesson In Dissent")

Armed resistance is the most commonly thought of form of defiance when thinking about the Holocaust. This idea in large part originated from a book published in 1961 by Raul Hilberg, an Austrian historian who was one of the first scholars to examine the topic of resistance. In his book, The Destruction of European Jews, Hilberg argues that only

“The shooting massacres expanded during the summer within weeks killing units devastated hundreds of Jewish communities. They slaughtered more Jews than the Nazis has murdered in the past eight years. About 1.3 million Jews were killed one by one, by the 3,000 men in the four Einsatzgruppen their support troops local police and collaborators all with assistance from Wehrmacht. Most of the 1.3 million murders occurred in 1941”(“Mass Murder”p.212). “We will not be led like sheep to the slaughter! True we are weak and defenseless, but the only reply to the murder is revolt brothers! Better to fall as free fighters than to live by the mercy of the murderers arise! Arise with your last breath” (Mass Murder p. 213). “They had a mobile killing van that gassed Jews who were being deported to the crematoria at Chelmno, Poland. Billowing smoke testifies to the fierce fighting between German troops

At the time of the Holocaust, Jews used armed and unarmed forms of resistance in order to retain their humanity. Armed resistance was when the Jewish people fought physically to avenge the slaughter of so many of their people. One example of this type of resistance was the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. “In April-May 1943, Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto rose in armed revolt after rumors that the Germans would deport the remaining ghetto inhabitants to the Treblinka killing center. (Jewish resisitance article)

Germany in January 1933, believed that Germans were “racially superior” and that the Jews, were “inferior” and a threat. The Germans sent millions of Jews to concentration camps where they then exterminated them in cruel ways. However, there were resistance groups throughout Europe who fought against the Nazi’s rule in a variety of ways. Some people resisted the Nazi’s rule by helping Jews as well as attacking the Germans. During the Holocaust, there were many resistance groups that fought against the Nazi’s rule including the Bielski Group, White Rose Group, Polish Żegota Organization, and Jewish Defense Committee.

    The Holocaust was a devastating period of time where German soldiers mistreated Jews horrifically, eventually killing over 6 million. While this was going on, there were resistance efforts. This included resistance from the Jews, and Germans. Three impactful examples of resistance efforts include the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising,  the White Rose Society, and the Sonderkommando Revolt. All of these groups worked to liberate Jews and opposed the Nazis.

Many think the Jews did not resist, yet they resisted in ways that did not hurt other people. The Jews, an empathetic group of people, resisted by upholding their religion in secret prayer and by documenting the terror they were forced to endure. This practice was called Oneg Shabbat. In the Warsaw ghetto, even through all of the pain and starvation, Jews recorded the details of what went on inside the ghetto and kept track of the living, buried the evidence in three milk cans, of which only two have been discovered. These individuals wanted future people to know what they experienced. These milk cans kept alive the legacy of these Jews and honor their lives and bravery. As Elie Wiesel said, “Even in darkness, it is possible to create light.” The same type of resistance can not be said of the Kurdish people. Instead of upholding their culture, they chose to resort to violence, only furthering the mass murder of their own people. The way in which Jews were treated throughout the Holocaust and how they chose to react with courage, rather than the violent eruptive behavior of the Kurds, makes the Holocaust a unique

The constant fear, terror, hunger with the worst conditions, daily, in the camps made it hard and dangerous for the victims to resist. Nevertheless, one of the ways to resist was the spiritual resistance; keeping their traditions, practice Judaism and perform rituals as much as possible, even if it means to risk their life doing so. In the tale "Circumcision" (Eliach, 1982), we witness a daring act by a mother, who asks a German soldier for his knife in order to circumcise him. She performs a fearless act and presents her faith by circumcised her son in front of the German soldier. This bold act is sure a resistance (p.151).