Resistance during the Holocaust by United States Holocaust Memorial Museum - HTML preview

Collection, Photo Archives,

USHMM

war effort, they advocated the sabotage of the armaments industry. “We will not be silent,” they wrote to their fellow students. “We are your bad conscience. The White Rose will not leave you in peace!” Because the students were aware that only military force could end Nazi domination, they limited their aims to achieve

“a renewal from within of the severely wounded German spirit.” After the German army’s defeat at Stalingrad in late January 1943, the Scholls distributed pamphlets urging students in Munich to rebel. But in the next month, a university janitor who saw them with the pamphlets betrayed them to the Gestapo.

The regime executed Hans and Sophie Scholl and Christoph Probst on February 22, 1943. Officials also eventually arrested and executed philosophy professor Kurt Huber, who had guided the movement, and the rest of the “White Rose” members.

At his trial Huber remained loyal to the great 18th-century German philosopher Immanuel Kant’s ethical teaching, as he concluded his defense with the words of Kant’s disciple Johann Gottlieb Fichte:

And thou shalt act as if

On thee and on thy deed

Depended the fate of all Germany,

And thou alone must answer for it.

44

N O T E S

p. 3

It was during that summer: Jack and Rochelle Sutin, Jack and Rochelle: A Holocaust Story of Love and Resistance, ed. Lawrence Sutin (St. Paul, MN: Graywolf Press, 1995), 51–52.

p. 10

Jewish armed resistance: Vladka Meed, “Jewish Resistance in the Warsaw Ghetto,” Dimensions 7, no. 2 (1993): 11.

p. 15

Offer armed resistance!: “A Manifesto of the Jewish Resistance in Vilna,” in Anthology of Holocaust Literature, ed. Jacob Glatstein, Israel Knox, and Samuel Margoshes (New York: Atheneum by arrangement with The Jewish Publication Society of America, 1973), 332–33.

p. 17

The main objective: Vladka Meed, On Both Sides of the Wall: Memoirs from the Warsaw Ghetto, trans. Dr. Steven Meed (New York: Holocaust Library, 1979), 94–95.

pp. 19, 21

Monday, April 19: Tovia Bozhikowski, “In Fire and Blood,” trans. Moshe Spiegel, in Warsaw Ghetto Uprising (Munich: Poale Zion, 1948). Reprinted in Anthology of Holocaust Literature, ed. Glatstein, Knox, and Margoshes, 309–10.

p. 20

It was now clear: “The Last Wish of My Life Has Been Fulfilled,” in Massacre of European Jewry (Kibbutz Merchavia, Israel: World Hashomer Hatzair, English-Speaking Department, 1963). Reprinted in Anthology of Holocaust Literature, ed.

Glatstein, Knox, and Margoshes, 334–35.

p. 36

Blessed is the heart: Linda Atkinson, In Kindling Flame: The Story of Hannah Senesh 1921–1944 (New York: William Morrow, Beech Tree Books, 1992), 136.

p. 38

I would love to see: Joseph Kermish, ed., To Live with Honor and Die with Honor!

Selected Documents from the Warsaw Ghetto Underground Archives “O.S.” [“Oneg Shabbat”] (Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 1986), 66.

p. 38

People walk: Anonymous (9 March 1943), “Homesick,” in I Never Saw Another Butterfly: Children’s Drawings and Poems from Terezin Concentration Camp 1942–1944, ed. Hana Volavkova (New York: Schocken, 1993), 36.

p. 39

Should we fast?: Elie Wiesel, Night, trans. Stella Rodway (New York: Bantam Books, 1982), 65–66.

p. 44

And thou shalt act: Inge Scholl, The White Rose: Munich 1942–1943, trans. Arthur R.

Schultz (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1983), 65.

Back cover

Never say: Hersh Glick, “Jewish Partisan Song,” trans. Aaron Kramer in Folks-Shtimme (Poland). Reprinted in Anthology of Holocaust Literature, ed. Glatstein, Knox, and Margoshes, 349.

45

C H R O N O L O G Y

1933

1934

January 30

January 8

Adolf Hitler is appointed chancellor of

The German Social Democratic Party in exile

Germany.

issues their “Prague Manifesto” calling for a revo-lutionary struggle against the Nazi dictatorship.

February 27

Reichstag (German parliament) is burned.

October

First major wave of arrests of homosexuals

February 28

occurs throughout Germany, continuing into

Mass arrests of Communists. Decree “For the

November.

Protection of the People and the State”; suspension of constitutional rights, declaration of

State of Emergency (in force until 1945).

1935

March 4

April

Franklin D. Roosevelt is inaugurated as 32d

Jehovah’s Witnesses are banned from all civil

president of the United States.

service jobs and are arrested throughout

March 23

Germany.

First concentration camp opens at Dachau.

Summer

April 1

“No Jews” signs and banners are placed with

Jehovah’s Witnesses’ pamphlets are banned

increasing frequency outside towns and cities

from circulation.

and outside shops, restaurants, and public

recreation facilities.

Boycott against Jewish businesses.

September 15

April 7

Nuremberg laws issued, stripping Jews of citi-

Law for the “Reestablishment of the Civil

zenship and prohibiting marriage and sexual

Service” results in the firing of Jewish profes-relations between Jews and “Aryan” Germans.

sors from universities by the summer.

May

A “Theological Declaration” against the use of

1936

force and coercion of conscience by Nazis vis-à-

July 12

vis the Protestant churches is issued by an

The first German Gypsies are arrested and

alliance of clergymen called the “Confessing

deported to Dachau.

Church.”

August 1

May 10

The Olympic Games open in Berlin; the United

Public burnings of the books written by Jews,

States and 48 other nations participate in the political opponents, and the intellectual avant-two-week event.

garde.

August 28

July 14

Mass arrests of Jehovah’s Witnesses in

Law to “Prevent Offspring with Hereditary

Germany. Most are sent to concentration

Defects” provides the basis for involuntary ster-camps.

ilization of Gypsies, “social misfits,” psychiatric patients and physically handicapped persons,

and 500 teenagers, pejoratively called the

1938

“Rhineland bastards,” who were the offspring of March 13

German mothers and colonial African soldiers

The Anschluss: the incorporation of Austria into stationed in the Rhineland.

the Reich.

Hitler issues a decree declaring the Nazi Party September 29

to be the only legal political party in Germany.

The Munich agreement is signed. On October 6,

the Sudetenland is annexed by Germany and

the Czechoslovak Republic is established, with autonomy for Slovakia.

46

C H R O N O L O G Y

October 28

May 10

Between 15,000 and 17,000 stateless Polish Jews The war in the west begins as the Germans

are expelled from Germany into Poland.

invade the Netherlands, Belgium, and France.

Germany completes its conquest of continental

November 7

western Europe by the end of June.

Herschel Grynszpan, a Polish Jew living in

France, assassinates Councillor von Rath, a

German embassy official in Paris, France, to

1941

protest the deportation of his parents to

Poland. This act was used as a pretext for

February 25

“Kristallnacht,” the state-organized attacks A strike protesting the deportation of Jews from against Jews and Jewish property carried out

the Netherlands begins in the Amsterdam ship-

throughout the Reich on November 9–10.

yards and soon spreads throughout the city.

June 22

Germany attacks the Soviet Union.

1939

June 23

March 15

Einsatzgruppen units begin massacres of Jews, The German army enters Czechoslovakia; the

Gypsies, and Communist party leaders in the

“Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia” is cre-

Soviet Union.

ated.

August 21

September 1

The first German soldier is killed in Paris,

Germany invades Poland; World War II begins.

France, by a member of the French resistance.

September 17

December 7

Parts of eastern Poland are annexed by the

The Japanese attack Pearl Harbor.

Soviet Union.

December 8

September 28

Chelmno killing center begins operations.

Poland is partitioned by Germany and the

Soviet Union; the Germans occupy Warsaw.

December 11

Germany declares war on the United States.

October 8

The first ghetto established by the Nazis is set December 31

up in Piotrkow Trybunalski, Poland.

Abba Kovner calls for armed resistance of

Jewish youth groups in the Vilna ghetto.

November 8

An attempt on Hitler’s life in Munich fails as a bomb explodes but leaves him uninjured.

1942

December

January 20

The first “euthanasia” murders are carried out German government leaders meet in the Berlin

in the children’s unit at Brandenburg-Goerden, district of Wannsee, where they draft detailed near Berlin.

plans for the annihilation of European Jewry.

March 1

1940

Sobibor killing center begins operations.

April 27

March 17

SS Chief Heinrich Himmler orders the establish-Belzec killing center begins operations.

ment of a concentration camp at Auschwitz.

May 1

Early in June the first prisoners, mostly Polish A successful one-day general strike of ghetto

Christians, are brought there.

workers in the Bialystok ghetto in eastern

April 30

Poland is organized by the ghetto resistance.

The Lodz ghetto in annexed Polish lands is

May 18

sealed.

Members of the Herbert Baum resistance group

May

set fire to an anti-Soviet propaganda exhibition Dr. Emmanuel Ringelblum founds the Oneg

in Berlin.

Shabbat (“Joy of the Sabbath”) secret archives June 1

in the Warsaw ghetto to document the plight of Treblinka killing center begins operations.

Polish Jews.

47

C H R O N O L O G Y

June 14

February 18

Thirteen-year-old Anne Frank begins to write

Hans and Sophie Scholl and other leaders of the her diary several days before her family goes

“White Rose” are arrested for distributing anti-into hiding to avoid deportation from the

Nazi leaflets in Munich. On February 22, they

Netherlands.

are executed.

July

April 19

Members of the “White Rose” movement begin

Members of the Committee for the Defense of

to distribute anti-Nazi leaflets in Munich.

Jews in Belgium cooperate with the Belgian

July 22

resistance to attack a deportation train leaving Residents of the Nieswiec ghetto in eastern

the transit camp of Malines.

Poland resist a German deportation with

Warsaw ghetto revolt begins.

knives, axes, clubs, and a handful of firearms. A August 2

few Jews manage to escape to join the parti-

Armed revolt begins in the Treblinka killing cen-sans.

ter.

August 30

August 16

Leaders of the Rote Kapelle (Red Orchestra), a Fighting begins in the Bialystok ghetto as the German Communist resistance group working

Germans prepare to deport the residents to

with Soviet intelligence from 1939, are arrested.

death camps. Resistance fighters hold out

They are executed in December.

against German tanks and artillery until August September 2–3

26. Several groups manage to escape into the

The residents of Lachva, Belorussia, stubbornly surrounding forests. Some 40,000 Jews left in

resist German attempts to massacre them. Up

the ghetto are deported in the coming weeks.

to 700 Jews are killed in the struggle, enabling September 1

some to flee into the forests to join partisan Armed resistance is ordered by Vilna ghetto

groups.

resistance leaders as the liquidation of the ghet-September 10–11

to begins. Lacking arms, only a few fighters

Meir Berliner, a Jewish prisoner at Treblinka, manage to fight to the death over the next few kills SS officer Max Bialis. In retaliation, Ukrainian days. Others escape to join partisan bands out-guards massacre many Jews awaiting death in

side the city.

the camp’s gas chambers.

October 14

September 23

Armed revolt begins at the Sobibor killing cen-Following a German order to assemble for

ter.

deportation, Jews in the Tuczyn ghetto in west-December 22

ern Ukraine set fire to the ghetto’s houses, offer-Cracow’s underground Jewish Fighting

ing strong resistance. Up to 2,000 people escape Organization carries out a daring attack on

into the forests.

German officers sitting in the city’s Cyganeria cafe. Eleven Germans are killed and 13 wound-

1943

ed.

January 18

Several combat groups of the Jewish Fighting

1944

Organization (ZOB) fight German units attempt-

March 7

ing to deport Jews not working in armaments

Emmanuel Ringelblum and his family are exe-

factories from the Warsaw ghetto.

cuted by the Germans. After the war, his Oneg February

Shabbat histories are discovered and published.

Some 200 to 300 Christian women in mixed mar-

May 16

riages protest for nearly one week outside sev-Gypsies at Auschwitz resist the destruction of eral Berlin assembly centers after their Jewish the Gypsy family camp.

husbands are arrested.

June 6

February 2

D-Day: the Allies land on the coast of Normandy, German forces at Stalingrad surrender to the

France.

Soviet army, a turning point in the war.

48

C H R O N O L O G Y

July 20

1945

A group of dissident German officers and politi-January 6

cians attempt to assassinate Hitler. The attempt Four women prisoners — Roza Robota, Ella

fails, and a number of those implicated are

Gaertner, Esther Wajcblum, and Regina Safir-

either summarily shot or executed after sen-

sztain — are hanged in the women’s camp at

tencing by a “People’s Court” within a few days.

Auschwitz. They had smuggled the explosives

August 1

that were used during the Sonderkommando

The Warsaw uprising begins as Polish resis-

revolt of October 7, 1944.

tance forces occupy important parts of the city.

February 2

The fighting continues until October 2, when

During the night, more than 570 prisoners,

remnants of the Polish forces surrender. Tens of many of them Soviet prisoners of war under

thousands of Polish citizens and fighters are

death sentences, revolt and escape from a bar-

killed.

rack in the Mauthausen concentration camp. All August 19

but 17 are later caught and killed.

An insurrection begins in Paris, France, to liber-April 9

ate the city as the western allies approach. The Dietrich Bonhoeffer is hanged at Flossenbuerg

city is liberated on August 25.

concentration camp.

September 1

April 11

The Slovakian uprising begins. Partisan units

Prisoners at Buchenwald revolt to forestall the battle the Germans until October 27, when sur-planned evacuation of the camp as the Allies

viving partisans flee into the mountains.

draw near. Some 150 Germans are taken prison-

September 8

er a few hours before units of the American

Italian partisans seize the Val d’Ossoloa near forces enter and liberate the camp.

the Swiss border. They proclaim a republic,

May 7

which lasts for five weeks, until the Germans

Germany surrenders to the Allies.

recapture the area.

October 6–7

Prisoners blow up Crematorium IV at Ausch-

witz–Birkenau.

October 20

Belgrade is liberated by Yugoslav partisan units and Soviet troops.

49

S E L E C T E D A N N O T A T E D

B I B L I O G R A P H Y

*Indicates works most accessible to high school Dawidowicz, Lucy S. The War against the Jews, and advanced middle school students.

1933–1945, 169–353. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston; Bantam Books, 1986. An excel-Ainsztein, Reuben. Jewish Resistance in Nazi-lent description and understanding of the

Occupied Europe. New York: Barnes and various aspects of Jewish life and resistance

Noble, 1974. An excellent, widely used

in the ghettos.

source.

*Eliach, Yaffa. Hasidic Tales of the Holocaust.

*Altshuler, David A. Hitler’s War Against the New York: Vintage Books, 1988. This collec-Jews. West Orange, NJ: Behrman House, tion of 89 tales bears witness to spiritual

1978. The young reader’s version of Lucy

struggle for survival during the Holocaust.

Dawidowicz’s The War Against the Jews.

*Friedman, Ina R. Flying Against the Wind: The Arad, Yitzhak. Ghetto in Flames. New York: Story of a Young Woman Who Defied the

Holocaust Publications, 1982. Arad’s scholar-

Nazis. Brookline, MA: Lodgepole Press, 1995.

ly and groundbreaking study focuses upon

This biography tells the little-known story of the life, struggle, and annihilation of the Jews Cato Bjontes van Beek, a non-Jewish German

of Vilna between 1941 and 1944.

executed at the age of 22 for writing and cir-

Armstrong, John A., ed. Soviet Partisans in culating anti-Nazi flyers.

World War II. Madison, WI: University of

*Friedman, Philip. “Jewish Resistance to

Wisconsin Press, 1964. This collection of

Nazism: Its Various Forms and Aspects.” In

scholarly essays remains a standard refer-

Anthology of Holocaust Literature, edited by ence work on the Soviet resistance.

Jacob Glatstein, Israel Knox, and Samuel

*Atkinson, Linda. In Kindling Flame: The Story Margoshes, 275–90. New York: Atheneum,

of Hannah Senesh 1921–1944. New York: 1968. A clearly written overview. For

William Morrow, Beech Tree Books, 1992.

excerpts from memoirs, documents, and fic-

Story of the noted resistance fighter who

tion on Jewish resistance, see pp. 291–339.

fought with the Palestinian Jewish Brigade of

Gutman, Israel. “The Armed Struggle of the

the British army.

Jews in Nazi Occupied Countries.” In The

*Bachrach, Susan D. Tell Them We Remember: Holocaust: The Fate of European Jewry, edited The Story of the Holocaust. Boston: Little, by Leni Yahil, 457–99. New York: Oxford

Brown, 1994. A history for younger readers,

University Press, 1987. An excellent, useful

as presented in the United States Holocaust

summary.

Memorial Museum. Includes sections on

*———. Resistance: The Warsaw Ghetto Upris-

resistance.

ing. Boston: Houghton Mifflin in association Bauer, Yehuda. “Forms of Jewish Resistance

with United States Holocaust Memorial

During the Holocaust.” In Holocaust: Reli-

Museum, 1994.

gious and Philosophical Implications, edited Haestrup, Jorgen. European Resistance Move-by John K. Roth and Michael Berenbaum,

ments, 1939–1945: A Complete History. West-136–55. New York: Paragon House, 1989. A

port, CT: Meckler Publishing, 1981.

valuable summary.

Hilberg, Raul. The Destruction of the European Bracher, Karl Dietrich. The German Dictator-Jews. Student ed. New York: Holmes and ship. Translated from the German by Jean Meier, 1985. Abridged version of the three-Steinberg, 370–99. New York: Praeger, 1976. A

volume work of the same title by one of the

succinct summary of resistance in Germany

leading American scholars of the Holocaust.

by left-wing groups, churches, and the mili-

Pages 293–305 summarize Hilberg’s views on

tary.

Jewish resistance.

Hoffman, Peter.

PREV   NEXT