Essay on The Jewish Partisans of The Holocaust

The Jewish citizens living in Germany were the reason the war was lost. With German citizens looking high and low for answers, This was the perfect time for propaganda to place its roots. “The nineteenth century xenophobic "volkisch movement" (folk or people’s movement)—made

When the Nazi's called for more people to report for deportation, the ZOB handed out leaflets describing the horror that awaited those who left. The night before the deportation of factory workers was to occur, the ZOB burned down the factory and machinery. On January 18, 1943, SS troops surrounded the Ghetto and began to march in. The ZOB replied with gunfire. In a battle that lasted three days, 50 German soldiers were killed or wounded. Even though ZOB casualties had been high, the Germans retreated. From this brief show of ability and force, the ZOB earned respect and received more outside support including 49 more revolvers, 50 grenades, and some explosives from the Polish Underground. With a group of 1,000 fighters, the resistance created teams of ten, usually 8 men and 2 women, who fought together. Half of the members of each team had their own arms. Following the insurrection, Himmler ordered the SS Brigadier General in charge of operations at the Warsaw Ghetto, Jurgen Stroop, that "the roundups in the Warsaw Ghetto must be carried out with relentless determination and in as ruthless a manner as possible. The tougher the attack, the better. Recent events show just how dangerous these Jews are."

The SS and police of the Special Detachment were then transferred to Yugoslavia to engage in anti-Partisan operations; the Jewish forced laborers were shot. (1941 - 1945 Timeline)

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

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

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.

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

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.

There was a love hate relationship with their fellow Jews. “Above them loomed German orders; below them spread the ever more desperate needs of the Jewish communities” (Genocide 116). Some of the Jews resented the Jewish Council, saying they should have warned them or done more. They didn’t like the Council collaborating with the Germans. “…the Jewish Councils tried to help their people, to maintain order, save lives, and to feed, clothe, and doctor the Jews in the ghettos” (Genocide 116). There was hostility from their own people and in some ways it pushed them to behave the opposite of their goal. They tried to mediate and plead on the Jews behalf. Some Council members helped with the resistance and some believed it would doom the entire ghetto. An example of the Jewish Council in the ghetto is, “New proclamations from the Judenrat have been hung up which have caused panic among the Jews. The families of those working are no longer protected” (Images 161). The Jewish Council formed its own Jewish Order Police. The Jewish police were also made to enforce order and deport Jews following the commands of the Germans. Like the Council, the Order Police were also disliked among the ghetto tenants. The purpose of the police was to prevent crime, supervise sanitation, and direct traffic. “The Jewish police delivered to the Germans exactly the number of people needed, rounding them up

Something that not many know about the Holocaust is there were many acts of resistance performed by the Jews being affected. For example, “On October 7, the...prisoners forced to handle the bodies of gas chamber victims...succeeded in blowing up one of the four crematoria at Aushwitz” (“Holocaust”). Another example is “On August 2,700 Jews torched parts of the Treblinka death camp” (“Holocaust”).

Many events in the world have been documented in our history books, but sometimes forgotten. However, the reminisce of events that took place during the Holocaust are the ones that are never forgotten. Neither should the groups and countries that showed resistance towards Hitler. Because of the antipathy towards Hitler 's regime, resistance towards Nazi’s and the Holocaust was a combined effort from many different groups and countries, through many different means. Some resistances showed more effective and immediate results through direct revolt towards the Holocaust: Warsaw

From 1941 to 1943, Jews created underground resistance movements in about 100 ghettos throughout Nazi occupied territory. Despite the terrible conditions, lack of resources, lack of support in, as well as outside, the ghetto, and fear of individual and collective punishment, spiritual and armed resistance occurred.

Preparing for the resistance brought up both feelings of terror, and excitement over the fact that the Nazis would not be able to get away with at least one of their plans so easily. Zivia Lubetkin, who was a resistance fighter in the ghetto, describes the feeling of the resistance organization on the 18th of April after getting the news of the final roundup that was to take place the next day. She says “[e]ven though we were prepared, and had even prayed for this hour, we turned pale. A tremor of joy mixed with a shudder of fear passed through all of us. But we suppressed our emotions and reached for our guns” (Gilbert 557). Resistance was a new idea to the Jews. Since the Nazis had taken over, the Jews had found themselves in a rather helpless situation. There was almost no way to escape the ghettos, and those who did manage to make it out knew they were costing the Jews they had left behind. This was the first real attempt at an actual organized armed resistance. Lubetkin tells how the Germans were determined, especially after being forced to retreat in January, but so were the Jews. Determination was certainly something

The Italian resistance movement included Italian and Jewish partisans. There were about 2,000 Jewish partisans that fought in Italian partisan groups. Many of the Jews held very high ranking positions in the resistance (Jewish Partisan Educational Foundation, 2006-2015). The Jewish Italian resistance groups were, for the most part, not founded on Jewish identity, but instead were integrated groups that readily accepted Jews to fight alongside them against the common fascist enemy. Italian Jewish partisans were not deeply religious. After the September 8 treaty, Germany annulled the contract it had created with Italy’s Fascist Government not to deport Italian Jews (who were living in Germany). The Jewish resistance group was highly appealing

Those collaborators who worked with the Nazis didn’t so largely out of hatred of communism, not out of support of the Nazi regime or its ideals. There were also many who partook in the fight against the Soviet Union on the eastern front. As the Wehrmacht marched eastwards, conquering territory at an unprecedented rater, they left begin large tracts of land that had to be consolidated and integrated. Many natives put themselves at the service of the Wehrmacht and the Nazi Regime, hoping that if they would help the Nazis now, then their interests would perhaps be met in the future. For example, the Cossacks and Chechens did just that. The ROA was also established to conduct anti-partisan warfare and some members played a role in the suppression of the Warsaw uprising. General Vlasov was another infamous Nazi-Collaborator, who was also the head of the ROA. After being captured by the Wehrmacht, he offered his expertise as a general against the Soviet Union. In short, Nazi-collaborators where not particularly supportive of the Nazi-Regime or its policies, but nonetheless united with them to fight against communism and support their own