The Different Forms Of Jewish Resistance To The Holocaust
There are many different views on Jewish resistance during the holocaust. The two main opposing ideas being that there was no resistance from the Jews and the latter being that Jews did resist Nazi rule and in turn their slaughter. The main argument is the question of what is resistance which is the main problem in trying to understand or pin point the historiography of Jewish resistance. In trying to understand the Jewish historiography of resistance, this essay will start by defining the different forms of resistance as so mentioned in Michael Marrus’s Jewish Resistance to the Holocaust. This essay will also talk about the different spheres where resistance took place and the different movements that were formed in response to the forceful Nazi take over or rule.
It is said by many historians that there are …show more content…
different categories or resistance most evident being armed resistance and passive resistance. Any sort of resistance that involves some sort of violence is armed resistance whereas passive resistance involves none violent forms of resistance such as peaceful protests and so forth Just as the Jews in the face of death and denationalization continued to practice their religion while the Nazi were trying to get rid of it, they helped each other with food and taking care of each other in the ghettos. This could be defined as symbolic resistance which as mentioned before includes the refusal to let go of the Jewish nationality and holding onto everything that it essentially is. Another subcategory of passive resistance called polemic resistance which not very different than symbolic resistance only it has more details. According to Rings quoted in Marrus 1995 the outspoken protester identifies with the following statement: “I oppose the occupying power by protesting or organizing protests, even at risk to myself. I say or do things calculated to persuade my fellow countrymen of the need to fight on.” An example of polemic resistance was when people within the Jewish community tried to warn other Jews about the existence of the “Final Solution” including the deportations which were said to be for transporting people to work in camps while people were taken to their deaths to liquidate the ghettos and the Jewish population. Defensive resistance although it is a violent kind of resistance is still in favour of those who are oppressed and on the run from the oppressor. Marrus noted that this form of resistance was taken upon more frequently than reported, by Jews to try and protect themselves all around Europe.
It was very difficult for Jews to have any sort of this type of resistance as it required time and a great deal of resources.
It requires the creation of widespread and operative resistance networks takes time and as Marrus noted: “Almost invariably, Jews lacked time, which is one reason why so much of their resistance activity never extended beyond the symbolic or the polemic” (1995). Resistance that involves military operations and could be started by an individual or a group of people, including those operating underground, is called offensive resistance. It is said that those who took to offensive resistance also organized protests and wrote literature that doesn’t support Nazi rule while also taking others to safety secretly. Another form of resistance is called enchained which is brought about by people who had very little hope of surviving their horrible living conditions. A very obvious example is that of the Warsaw ghetto uprising. They were fighting for honor and preservation of the Jewish culture and population. However one chooses to define resistance, it is clear that Jews did resist Nazi rule as best as they could under the
circumstances.
The Jewish population was evidently not in the right situation to raise an army. Most of the resistance took place in ghettos, concentration camps and partisan groups. The most well-known ghettos resistance was that of the fore mentioned Warsaw Ghetto which took place in 1943. In contrast, the Lodz ghetto did not resist. It would be apparent that people respond to oppression in different ways. Others may even seem to be in agreement with the oppressor’s values which happened to be the case in the Lodz ghetto. The residents of the Lodz ghetto did not revolt as they were optimistic that their situation would change. They could not lose hope as they wouldn’t have been able to live in the already inhumane conditions of the ghetto. The above is as compared to Warsaw ghetto where the people knew their fate and refused to be lead to death on the conditions of the Nazis.
The Warsaw ghetto uprising has been studied in great detail by many historians. Both armed resistance and passive resistance were present in the ghetto. Yehuda Bauer, author of Rethinking the Holocaust, notes that people were educating Jew children during the time when the Nazis banned education. Small groups were formed to meet and a teacher was also present and would be paid in the form of food. There were two high schools which operated underground, one of which was taken charge by the Dror, an underground socialist Zionist movement. Bauer also states that a group of ten men was required for organized religious resistance. In addition there were also house committees created that helped in forming cultural activities and provided refuge for illegal political activities. All the above mentioned of course took place in secret. An important thing to take note of is that when the Jews were preparing to revolt had no intention or the illusion of victory over the Nazis.
Shmuel Krakowski, author of The War of the Doomed: Jewish Armed Resistance in Poland, 1942-1944 states that “It was necessary to prepare for an uprising that was doomed to defeat from its onset, an uprising in which it would be impossible to surrender, and which all know must end with the destruction of the entire ghetto” (1984).The people who were fighting against the Germans Knew that they were going to be defeated but they still prepared as if they were not doomed. They were well and carefully organized. They like an army had different stages of preparation. Jews who took part in this uprising knew it was a suicide mission but they still went through with the plan as it was necessary for them to die an honorable death to defy the very famous saying stating that Jews were lead to their death like sheep to slaughter. Concentration camps were also no foreigner to resistance and revolt by the Jews that were held prisoner there. One of the most famous camp revolts was that of Sobibor camp which was not located very far from Warsaw, where prisoners escaped by killing the guards on duty and escaping. A third of the Jews that did escape survived. A year earlier, in August of 1943, there was an uprising in a camp called Treblinka, which was located northeast of Warsaw. There were a several thousand prisoners originally but by the time of the revolt there were only a several hundred. They also like the prisoners in Sobibor killed the guards and escaped. In this regard it is possibly to argue that Jews did follow their teachings about the right or duty of preemptive self-defense. When necessary, they did kill and or avenge themselves. After revolting gin the ghettos and concentration camps, Jews took to the forests to cause even more chaos as the Nazis called it. Mostly partisan groups operated in the forest and did everything they could to revolt and survive including killing when needed to and rescuing fellow Jews in the woods who might have survived and had nowhere else to go.
Of all the literature read to write this essay, it is clear that most historians do believe that Jews did resist Nazi rule and their plan to eradicate the Jewish population in Eastern Europe first, then in all of Europe. The issue that has been raised constantly is not much about Jews not resisting but how their resistance can be defined. An argument could be made that by passively resisting Nazi rule, Jews were just trying to live through the traumatizing things that Nazis were doing to them. Raul Hilberg is one of the few historians who believe that Jews didn’t do enough to resist Nazi rule under the circumstances that they found themselves in. Hilberg is the author of The Destruction of the European Jews. He claimed that Jews were not orientated around resistance stating “even those who contemplated a resort to arms were given pause by the thought for the limited success of a handful, the multitude would suffer the consequences” (Hilberg, 1985). He continues by writing that “measured in German casualties, Jewish armed opposition shrinks into significance” (Hilberg, 1985). This essay, although Hilberg makes a strong point, is still believes that Jews did resist Nazi rule.
The Germans found ways to stop Jews from resisting, such as killing other Jews in the place of those who might have escaped, and the elimination of the influence that could possibly encourage the rest of the Jewish population to resist. Yehuda Bauer a holocaust historian who wrote Rethinking the Holocaust argues that Jews did resist. “This review of active Jewish responses to Nazi oppression could be summarized in an almost triumphalist fashion: there was unarmed resistance, there was sanctification of life, there was armed resistance” (Bauer, 2001). He also warns against exaggerating this particular view of Jewish resistance. He goes on to write: “But the summary would give a completely skewed picture. It would show a nostalgic, sickeningly sweet dream world, not the reality of the Holocaust. There would be no traitors in it, no desperate leadership groups trying to bribe and cajole the murderers even after they knew the situation was hopeless, no masses of disoriented, frightened people, numbed multitudes who gave up hope and therefore became easy prey for the murderers” (Bauer, 2001). Another argument is that the help of the non-Jewish resistance should be acknowledged. Lucien Steinberg notes that Jews survived not only by themselves but because of the help of other people who are not of a Jewish background but were against Nazi rule. “By revolting against the Hitler regime which intended to exterminate the entire Jewish population, the Jews were not engaging in an act of heroism, they simply wished to preserve the material and moral substance of their people. Their success won them immortality” (Steinberg, 1970). Steinberg is in opposition with Michael Marrus who stated that Jews survived with very little hope and help from the outside. He wrote “Its distinctiveness lies in the several characteristics that we have considered in this paper-that it may be the most poignant in its appeals, coming so often from the grave, that its fighters were often the most cut off, without allies or resources, and that its struggle, being so often without hope, was the most completely directed to ourselves, those of us who are responsible for how the history of these years will be told” (Marrus, 1995)
In conclusion, this essay will say that Jews did resist Nazi rule to the best of their abilities under the circumstances. It is also notable that many Jews were oblivious to the fact that Nazis were trying to exterminate them and any hint of Jewish culture. At the beginning of the Second World War, Nazis murdered most of the Jewish intelligence and leadership and left the Jewish people without any role models to look up to. Under the confining conditions that Jews were kept, it was difficult for them to attain arms to the same scale as the Germans could. Their lives and the future of the coming generations were at stake and they chose to preserve their culture. Whether that was enough resistance or not, Jews did not go to their deaths like sheep to slaughter. They fought the best way they could.
It is said by many historians that there are …show more content…
different categories or resistance most evident being armed resistance and passive resistance. Any sort of resistance that involves some sort of violence is armed resistance whereas passive resistance involves none violent forms of resistance such as peaceful protests and so forth Just as the Jews in the face of death and denationalization continued to practice their religion while the Nazi were trying to get rid of it, they helped each other with food and taking care of each other in the ghettos. This could be defined as symbolic resistance which as mentioned before includes the refusal to let go of the Jewish nationality and holding onto everything that it essentially is. Another subcategory of passive resistance called polemic resistance which not very different than symbolic resistance only it has more details. According to Rings quoted in Marrus 1995 the outspoken protester identifies with the following statement: “I oppose the occupying power by protesting or organizing protests, even at risk to myself. I say or do things calculated to persuade my fellow countrymen of the need to fight on.” An example of polemic resistance was when people within the Jewish community tried to warn other Jews about the existence of the “Final Solution” including the deportations which were said to be for transporting people to work in camps while people were taken to their deaths to liquidate the ghettos and the Jewish population. Defensive resistance although it is a violent kind of resistance is still in favour of those who are oppressed and on the run from the oppressor. Marrus noted that this form of resistance was taken upon more frequently than reported, by Jews to try and protect themselves all around Europe.
It was very difficult for Jews to have any sort of this type of resistance as it required time and a great deal of resources.
It requires the creation of widespread and operative resistance networks takes time and as Marrus noted: “Almost invariably, Jews lacked time, which is one reason why so much of their resistance activity never extended beyond the symbolic or the polemic” (1995). Resistance that involves military operations and could be started by an individual or a group of people, including those operating underground, is called offensive resistance. It is said that those who took to offensive resistance also organized protests and wrote literature that doesn’t support Nazi rule while also taking others to safety secretly. Another form of resistance is called enchained which is brought about by people who had very little hope of surviving their horrible living conditions. A very obvious example is that of the Warsaw ghetto uprising. They were fighting for honor and preservation of the Jewish culture and population. However one chooses to define resistance, it is clear that Jews did resist Nazi rule as best as they could under the
circumstances.
The Jewish population was evidently not in the right situation to raise an army. Most of the resistance took place in ghettos, concentration camps and partisan groups. The most well-known ghettos resistance was that of the fore mentioned Warsaw Ghetto which took place in 1943. In contrast, the Lodz ghetto did not resist. It would be apparent that people respond to oppression in different ways. Others may even seem to be in agreement with the oppressor’s values which happened to be the case in the Lodz ghetto. The residents of the Lodz ghetto did not revolt as they were optimistic that their situation would change. They could not lose hope as they wouldn’t have been able to live in the already inhumane conditions of the ghetto. The above is as compared to Warsaw ghetto where the people knew their fate and refused to be lead to death on the conditions of the Nazis.
The Warsaw ghetto uprising has been studied in great detail by many historians. Both armed resistance and passive resistance were present in the ghetto. Yehuda Bauer, author of Rethinking the Holocaust, notes that people were educating Jew children during the time when the Nazis banned education. Small groups were formed to meet and a teacher was also present and would be paid in the form of food. There were two high schools which operated underground, one of which was taken charge by the Dror, an underground socialist Zionist movement. Bauer also states that a group of ten men was required for organized religious resistance. In addition there were also house committees created that helped in forming cultural activities and provided refuge for illegal political activities. All the above mentioned of course took place in secret. An important thing to take note of is that when the Jews were preparing to revolt had no intention or the illusion of victory over the Nazis.
Shmuel Krakowski, author of The War of the Doomed: Jewish Armed Resistance in Poland, 1942-1944 states that “It was necessary to prepare for an uprising that was doomed to defeat from its onset, an uprising in which it would be impossible to surrender, and which all know must end with the destruction of the entire ghetto” (1984).The people who were fighting against the Germans Knew that they were going to be defeated but they still prepared as if they were not doomed. They were well and carefully organized. They like an army had different stages of preparation. Jews who took part in this uprising knew it was a suicide mission but they still went through with the plan as it was necessary for them to die an honorable death to defy the very famous saying stating that Jews were lead to their death like sheep to slaughter. Concentration camps were also no foreigner to resistance and revolt by the Jews that were held prisoner there. One of the most famous camp revolts was that of Sobibor camp which was not located very far from Warsaw, where prisoners escaped by killing the guards on duty and escaping. A third of the Jews that did escape survived. A year earlier, in August of 1943, there was an uprising in a camp called Treblinka, which was located northeast of Warsaw. There were a several thousand prisoners originally but by the time of the revolt there were only a several hundred. They also like the prisoners in Sobibor killed the guards and escaped. In this regard it is possibly to argue that Jews did follow their teachings about the right or duty of preemptive self-defense. When necessary, they did kill and or avenge themselves. After revolting gin the ghettos and concentration camps, Jews took to the forests to cause even more chaos as the Nazis called it. Mostly partisan groups operated in the forest and did everything they could to revolt and survive including killing when needed to and rescuing fellow Jews in the woods who might have survived and had nowhere else to go.
Of all the literature read to write this essay, it is clear that most historians do believe that Jews did resist Nazi rule and their plan to eradicate the Jewish population in Eastern Europe first, then in all of Europe. The issue that has been raised constantly is not much about Jews not resisting but how their resistance can be defined. An argument could be made that by passively resisting Nazi rule, Jews were just trying to live through the traumatizing things that Nazis were doing to them. Raul Hilberg is one of the few historians who believe that Jews didn’t do enough to resist Nazi rule under the circumstances that they found themselves in. Hilberg is the author of The Destruction of the European Jews. He claimed that Jews were not orientated around resistance stating “even those who contemplated a resort to arms were given pause by the thought for the limited success of a handful, the multitude would suffer the consequences” (Hilberg, 1985). He continues by writing that “measured in German casualties, Jewish armed opposition shrinks into significance” (Hilberg, 1985). This essay, although Hilberg makes a strong point, is still believes that Jews did resist Nazi rule.
The Germans found ways to stop Jews from resisting, such as killing other Jews in the place of those who might have escaped, and the elimination of the influence that could possibly encourage the rest of the Jewish population to resist. Yehuda Bauer a holocaust historian who wrote Rethinking the Holocaust argues that Jews did resist. “This review of active Jewish responses to Nazi oppression could be summarized in an almost triumphalist fashion: there was unarmed resistance, there was sanctification of life, there was armed resistance” (Bauer, 2001). He also warns against exaggerating this particular view of Jewish resistance. He goes on to write: “But the summary would give a completely skewed picture. It would show a nostalgic, sickeningly sweet dream world, not the reality of the Holocaust. There would be no traitors in it, no desperate leadership groups trying to bribe and cajole the murderers even after they knew the situation was hopeless, no masses of disoriented, frightened people, numbed multitudes who gave up hope and therefore became easy prey for the murderers” (Bauer, 2001). Another argument is that the help of the non-Jewish resistance should be acknowledged. Lucien Steinberg notes that Jews survived not only by themselves but because of the help of other people who are not of a Jewish background but were against Nazi rule. “By revolting against the Hitler regime which intended to exterminate the entire Jewish population, the Jews were not engaging in an act of heroism, they simply wished to preserve the material and moral substance of their people. Their success won them immortality” (Steinberg, 1970). Steinberg is in opposition with Michael Marrus who stated that Jews survived with very little hope and help from the outside. He wrote “Its distinctiveness lies in the several characteristics that we have considered in this paper-that it may be the most poignant in its appeals, coming so often from the grave, that its fighters were often the most cut off, without allies or resources, and that its struggle, being so often without hope, was the most completely directed to ourselves, those of us who are responsible for how the history of these years will be told” (Marrus, 1995)
In conclusion, this essay will say that Jews did resist Nazi rule to the best of their abilities under the circumstances. It is also notable that many Jews were oblivious to the fact that Nazis were trying to exterminate them and any hint of Jewish culture. At the beginning of the Second World War, Nazis murdered most of the Jewish intelligence and leadership and left the Jewish people without any role models to look up to. Under the confining conditions that Jews were kept, it was difficult for them to attain arms to the same scale as the Germans could. Their lives and the future of the coming generations were at stake and they chose to preserve their culture. Whether that was enough resistance or not, Jews did not go to their deaths like sheep to slaughter. They fought the best way they could.