The Jewish Culture During World War II

“The War Against The Jews” by Lucy Dawidowicz explores a very dark time in history and interprets it from her view. Through the use of other novels, she concurs and agrees to form her opinion. This essay will explore who Dawidowicz is, why she wrote the book, what the book is about, what other authors have explored with the same topic, and how I feel about the topic she wrote about. All in all, much research will be presented throughout the essay. In the end you will see how strongly I feel about the topic I chose. I believe that although Hitler terrorized the Jews, they continued to be stronger than ever, and tried to keep up their society.

More than 30,000 Jews were arrested to go to these ghettos. Once they had everything ready for all of the undesirables. SS guards were hired to do the dirty work of putting all of the prisoners to do forced labor until they died. No one cared how all of the undesirables were treated. It became an amusement to watch one die or get killed. Considering that's all they wanted was for all the innocent people to die. Every Day would be the same watching friends and families die, working for the Nazi getting nothing in return, digging their own graves, and only getting one cup of black coffee with soup that was just broth a day. Women even got raped by SS guards during this time considering the women were separated from the men to different camps. No one did anything to stop it because of the fear of death. In 1939 the Nazi had figured out a way to make sure there will never be a Jew again they called it the final

Although the Jews tried to resist, many factors were against them, such as lack of weapons and resources, trickery, fear, and the crushing power of the Germans. Many people refused to participate in these uprisings, but for those who chose to rebel, they served as an example for all of camp residents. In Night this happened also when the three inhabitants were hung and shown to the entire camp. Those who conformed to justice paid the ultimate price, but with that other learned what not to do. They sacrificed themselves unknowingly for their

The first concentration camp was created in 1933, just a few weeks after Hitler became chancellor. A total of twenty-two were created, and all together included 1,200 affiliated camps. The camps were found all over Germany. At first political opponents of Nazi policy were taken, and later Jews, gypsies, or criminals. Each camp consisted of barracks which were surrounded by barbed wire, watchtowers, and guards. Imprisonment in the camp included inhuman force labor, hunger, disease, mistreatment, and random executions. Prisoners were forced to work twelve hours day, or even more. The sick, old or those who could not keep up were killed by either gas, or injections. Those who could endure

During the Holocaust, In what ways did the Jews resist against the Nazis?. World War II was a terrible time for the Jewish people. The Nazis packed thousands of Jews in really small ghettos together and gave them terrible conditions to live with. The Jews were then later sent to concentration camps which even had worse conditions than the ghettos. During the Holocaust, the Jewish people participated in both armed and unarmed resistance in order to earn their freedom and hope.

This group was created from branches of the Polish underground resistance, who realized that the entire Jewish population was in grave danger and that unless groups were organized and coordinated to help

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.

Despite all of these internal and external factors contributing to a lack of Jewish resistance to the Holocaust, there was resistance in existence in many forms; the resistance that did occur must not be diminished or overlooked. When considering the definition of “resistance”, historians divide themselves on what this entails; some believe it to be only active, armed resistance attempts, while others define it more liberally. According to Yehuda Bauer, resistance entails “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.” Considering resistance with a broad definition such as this ensures that the efforts made at resistance

In 1939, Hitler was unsure of what he was going to do with the Jews; the Nazis were tossing around options and ideas with the goal of removing Jews from the population. The German invasion into Poland, allowed for the first ghetto, regarded as a provisional measure to control and segregate Jews. Ghettos were enclosed, isolated urban areas designated for Jews. Living under strict regulations, with unthinkable living conditions, and crammed into small areas, the ghettos destroyed all hope of retaliating. In this paper, I will discuss what life would be like to be a Jew inside one of the 1,000 of ghettos within Poland and the Soviet Union. I will imagine myself a member of the Jewish council, describing the

Examining any issue pertaining to the Holocaust is accompanied with complexity and the possibility of controversy. This is especially true in dealing with the topic of Jewish resistance to the Holocaust. Historians are often divided on this complex issue, debating issues such as how “resistance” is defined and, in accordance with that definition, how much resistance occurred. According to Michael Marrus, “the very term Jewish resistance suggests a point of view.” Many factors, both internal such as differences in opinion on when or what resistance was appropriate, as well as external, such as the lack of arms with which to revolt, contributed to making resistance, particularly armed resistance, extremely difficult. When considering acts

70 years ago (Ochayon) a new Ghetto was established. The Germans built Ghetto’s to hold Jews before they could take them out to a camp. They could be taken to a Death camp, Work camp, or a concentration camp. All the camps had a different reasons for different Jews. The Ghetto was located in Warsaw, Poland and became the largest Ghetto in Europe. It was opened in September, 1939 (“Ghetto”). The German soldiers created it in Warsaw for a certain reason. Usually people think that the Germans build Ghetto’s to take up space in a town. Because Warsaw had the largest Jewish population in Europe pre World War II (Ochayon), they held Jews throughout Poland (“Ghetto”).

My goal with my research is to look into the resistance of both the Jewish people and the others in European society who assisted in Jewish escapes. The perceived image of the Jews during the Holocaust is of “lambs to the slaughter.” The pictured painted of the rest of European society is one of either knowing accomplices or silent spectators. The Jewish people had many forms of resistance, some small and some large. While many of their neighbors were silent spectators, but many people were actively resisting the tyrannical Nazi government by assisting Jewish escapes. Each of these individuals risked their lives and the lives of their families and friends to aid these hunted individuals. They all deserve to have their stories heard and honored. In a time of complete chaos and destruction many people would not have the ability or fortitude to save the life of another person. The people that I will discuss in this paper were not only able to take that step, but put themselves and their families in real and eminent danger for the life, at times, of a complete stranger.

The Warsaw Ghetto held over 400,000 Jews, starving them and ravaging them with disease. After two years of persecuting and executing Jews, an uprising ended the reign of terror, killing hundreds of thousands of rebellious prisoners and leaving the rest to be sent to other death camps. The story of the Warsaw Ghetto gave many, many Jews hope that they could indeed fight back against Hitler and survive.

Inmates resembled skeletons and were so weak they were unable to move. The smell of burning bodies was ever present and piles of corpses were scattered around the camp. However, you could be “saved” from the crematoria to be used as test subjects to cruel experimentation and used as lab rats for any experiment the scientists wanted to conduct. Later in the war, extermination camps were built. These were specialized for the mass murder of Jews using Zyklon B to ensure a painful, long, and torturous death. The bodies would then be thrown into the fire and all clothes, teeth, and shoes would be sent to pursue the German war front. At max efficiency, 20,000 people would be killed in the gas chambers a day. As the red Army approached near to liberate the Jews in concentration and extermination camps, SS officers sent prisoners on a death march across hundreds of miles, where they ran with no food or water, no matter the weather, until they reached the closest camp. SS officers proceeded to blow up the camps to hide the genocide from the

Their main goals were to organize uprisings, break out of the ghettos, and join partisan units in the fight against the Germans.The Jews knew that uprisings would not stop the Germans and that only a handful of fighters would succeed in escaping to join the partisans. Still, some Jews made the decision to resist. Weapons were smuggled into ghettos. Inhabitants in the ghettos of Vilna, Mir, Lachva , Kremenets, Częstochowa, Nesvizh, Sosnowiec, and Tarnow, among others, resisted with force when the Germans began to deport ghetto populations. In Bialystok, the underground staged an uprising just before the final destruction of the ghetto in September 1943. Most of the ghetto fighters, primarily young men and women, died during the fighting.The Warsaw ghetto uprising in the spring of 1943 was the largest single revolt by Jews. Hundreds of Jews fought the Germans and their auxiliaries in the streets of the ghetto. Thousands of Jews refused to obey German orders to report to an assembly point for deportation. In the end the Nazis burned the ghetto to the ground to force the Jews out. Although they knew defeat was certain, Jews in the ghetto fought desperately and