How Did Hitler Use Armed Resistance During The Holocaust

Imagine living through a time where you are persecuted for your religious beliefs, would you be able to practice spiritual resistance? For Jewish people this was a daily dilemma they faced in death camps, ghettos, or in hiding during the Holocaust. This may seem like a difficult decision, but for many brave Jews, all they had left was their faith. Some of the very dedicated and brave made it their mission to record the tragedies of everyday life during the Holocaust. Those same courageous people fought to keep the Jewish faith existing. Spiritual and cultural resistance is important to preserve the history and hope of the Jewish people and document what happened in the Holocaust.

The author Elie Wiesel said, “There are victories of the soul and spirit. Sometimes, even if you lose, you win”. People often wonder how there was barely any resistance to the Nazis without realizing that the resistance was hidden just under the Germans nose’s. One such resistance group was called the Jewish Fighting Organization. The group was otherwise known as the ZOB. The Jewish Fighting Organization aimed to gain control of the Warsaw Ghetto because they could no longer stand by and watch their family and friends be deported to concentration camps.

While the White Rose, Le Chambon and Zegota groups were all resisters, their goals were different and their reasons for resisting were very different. The main goal of the White Rose group was to crate a public uprising against the German government, to take a stand against the crimes they have been committing, and to show the world that the German people do not support the acts they have done. The Zegota groups’ purpose was to directly help those affected by the Nazi reign, by using moral obligation and political finances to help house and assist hiding Jews. The Le Chambon resistance incorporated a morally charged village who’s own persecution lead them to protecting the refugee Jews and citizens. While each group had different methods, and reasons for resisting, each of these groups fought against a government that they knew was wrong and took a stand against

Spiritual resistance is defined as “attempts by individuals to maintain their humanity, personal integrity, and sense of civilization in the face of Nazi attempts to dehumanize and degrade them” by the United States Holocaust Museum (Spiritual). Spiritual resistance was highly regarded by many Jews, and most actually considered it to be the purest form of resistance because it was non-violent, and kept their spirits from being broken, even while facing horrible degradation. Examples of spiritual resistance include conducting religious services while in ghettos or concentration camps, keeping covert libraries of Jewish works, and establishing secret archives to report about daily life in the ghettos.

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.

Non-violent resistance began to evolve as the Jews were transported to the concentration camps. Upon their initial arrival in the concentration camps, inmates attempted to aid each other in various ways, such as by giving those that were extremely malnourished extra food or attempting to lessen the workload on those that were weaker by taking their place; these acts, although not aimed directly against the SS, were simply keeping one another alive. These acts can be considered under Bauer’s definition of resistance in that the groups’ motives in sustaining themselves as a whole was in direct opposition to the central idea of the SS to break down and destroy the Jewish population. These acts also helped lead to the later active, armed resistance in that they helped to keep inmates alive and maintain their strength, as well as providing them with a will to resist.

Summary: This article was an introduction to the Holocaust. The German Nazi’s thought that the Jews were a community. Not only the Jews were targeted, anyone with a racial inferiority was targeted. For example, although the Jews were the main threat the gypsies, Jehovah’s witnesses, and homosexuals and the disabled were also targeted. The Holocaust was a way to decrease the Jewish population; the final solution was to murder the Jews of Europe or anyone that was a threat to their German culture. Many died of incarceration and maltreatment. During the war they created ghettos, forced-labor camps between 1941 and 1944 the Nazi German Authorities would deport the Jews to extermination camps where they were murdered in gassing facilities. May 7, 1945 the German armed forces surrendered to the allies.

“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.

The underground used mainly armed resistance to hurt the Germans. Armed resistance was fighting however they could and not letting others who couldn’t be passive "The fighters encouraged the ghetto population to fight back however they could" (Vashem). They mainly fought to keep their culture and to try every day to live longer and not go down without a fight.

During the holocaust, Jewish citizens were using unarmed forces such as schools. Jewish children were in schools during the holocaust. “ During the holocaust, marisha was put into a nazi school during WWII. This quote fits because it talks about being in a school. This helped retain their humanity because they can still get an education. Another non-violent way Jews resisted was religious ceremonies.

Jews developed a movement of armed and unarmed resistance to retain their humanity. Jews had enough of the germans and went on an uprising to fight against them using violence. They created organized resistance groups all across making sure the nazis knew they could not be stopped by killing one. Jews who believe violence was not the answer they resisted spiritually and mentally. Armed and unarmed resistance killed a lot of lives but at the same time saved a lot more lives because without the resistance movement who knows if the Jews would still be

Some people may ask “why didn't Jewish people resist against the Nazi oppression that they faced?” Well they did indeed stand up against Adolf Hitler and his Nazi forces during the Holocaust. In 1939 Adolf Hitler sent his troops to invade poland, starting World War 2. After invading Poland, he then set up various rules against the Jewish population, First making them wear stars of david on their clothing while in public, then forcing them into ghettos where they were excluded from the rest of the population. This lead people to resist the Nazi oppression. During the Holocaust, there were various acts of armed and unarmed resistance in order to preserve the Jewish honor and faith.

Armed resistances were a group of jewish of non jewish civils who were against the actions occurring and used obtained weapons that were often stolen from enemy bases.

Resistance is the act of refusing to accept something and fighting against the authority to make things right. Jewish resistance during World War II gave Jewish people hope that they will be free again. Jewish resistance took place in many concentration camps and ghettos. There were also many groups dedicated to fighting the German Nazis, some Jews chose to fight them armed and others chose the more peaceful way of resisting, like spirtual resistance. While the Nazis had more power than the resistance groups throughout the war, armed Jewish resistance had a major role fighting against the German Nazis because these Jewish resistance groups were formed dedicated to fighting the Nazis for their freedom, and people in the concentration camps and ghettos also resisted the Nazis in their own limited ways, but it still played a

Resistance, in many ways, was almost impossible for Jewish people. It was also extremely difficult for citizens in the Nazi controlled countries. There was very little access to weapons. The Germans also made extremely hard to move about freely. Furthermore, open conflict was not a successful alternative, as it most often resulted in death. However this did not stop the Jewish people in fighting for their lives. Resistance took many forms. For some simply living their normal life by going to secret schools or hidden Synagogues was a form of resiting the Nazis anti-Semitic regime. For other resistance took a violent form, which could range fro simple self defence to planned attacks on the German Nazi Party. Could the Jews have done more and