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Partisan Groups In The Holocaust

Decent Essays

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 …show more content…

The Bielski brothers, the leaders of one of the largest Partisan units, were able to save over twelve hundred Jewish lives. They did this by providing a semi-permanent home in the forest for all Jews (Partisans 2 Bielski Brothers, pages 6,8). Having a place to live with a sense of normality helped Jews that had escaped from Ghettos and camps to feel safe and at home inside of the forest. Women were allowed in some partisans, but not all. It was more dangerous for a woman than a man in a partisan unit. The women not only had the same fears that the men did over capture, but they also had to worry about being raped. The jobs of women were limited in the partisans. In most cases, they were not even allowed to have guns to protect themselves. Women were nurses, doctors, cooks, wives, and caregivers. Having women around often raised the morale of the men fighting in the partisans (Women in partisans pages 2-5). Women gave the men an incentive to go home to, and some even started families together. In contrast to the armed partisan units, who only accepted physically fit fighters, family units provided a home for everyone. They were made up of men who were rejected from the armed resistance, women, and children, and were often protected by a group with weapons (Partisans 3 pages 1-2). While individual partisans could not accept everyone, for fear of getting too large and chancing …show more content…

One partisan unit in Vilina derailed hundreds of supply trains, killing over three thousand Germans in the process and making it more difficult for the Germans to fight in the war (USHMM). The partisans often attacked military outposts and other strategic locations, such as power plants and factories, to make it harder to make supplies for the war effort, but they never attacked civilians (JPEF). In most cases, the partisans had the upper hand. They attacked at night when the Nazis were least expecting an attack and the least amount of people would be hurt, and they knew the lay of the land better than the, in many cases, foreign Germans (JPEF). Additionally, when the partisans could get information inside of the Nazi labor camps, Jews on the inside would purposely sabotage weapons that they were building for the Germans (JPEF). With these small attacks, partisan units were able to limit the participation of the Nazis in the war, and decrease the damage that they were doing to the Jewish

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