Jewish resistance movement
Encyclopedia : J : JE : JEW : Jewish resistance movement
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The Jewish resistance movement were several attempts of resistance of the Jewish people against Nazi Germany leading up to and through World War II. Due to the careful organization and overwhelming military might of the Nazi German State and its supporters, many Jews were unable to resist the killings. There are, however, many cases of attempts at resistance in one form or another, and over a hundred armed Jewish uprisings.
Uprisings
In Ghettos
The largest instance of organized Jewish resistance was the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, from April to May of 1943, as the final deportation from the Ghetto to the death camps was about to commence. The ŻOB and ŻZW fighters held out against the Nazis for 27 days, before most were killed and the uprising suppressed. There were also other Ghetto Uprisings, though none were successful against the German military.
In concentration camps
There were also major resistance efforts in three of the extermination camps.
- In August 1943, an uprising took place at the Treblinka extermination camp. Many buildings were burnt to the ground, and 70 inmates escaped to freedom, but 1,500 were killed. Gassing operations were interrupted for a month.
- In October 1943, another uprising took place at Sobibór extermination camp. This uprising was more successful; 11 German SS commanding officers, including deputy commander, were killed, and roughly 300 of the 700 inmates in the camp escaped, with about 50 surviving the war. The escape forced the Nazis to close the camp.
- On October 7, 1944, the Jewish Sonderkommandos (those inmates kept separate from the main camp and put to work in the gas chambers and crematoria) at Auschwitz staged an uprising. Female inmates had smuggled in explosives from a weapons factory, and Crematorium IV was partly destroyed by an explosion. At this stage they were joined by the Birkenau One Kommando, which also overpowered their guards and broke out of the compound. The inmates then attempted a mass escape, but almost all of 250 were killed soon after.
Partisan groups
There were a number of Jewish partisan groups operating in many countries (see Eugenio Calò for the story of a Jewish Italian partisan). Also, Jewish volunteers from Mandatory Palestine, most famously Hannah Szenes, parachuted into Europe in an attempt to organize resistance.
Types of resistances
In every ghetto, in every deportation train, in every labor camp, even in the death camps, the will to resist was strong, and took many forms. Fighting with the few weapons that would be found, individual acts of defiance and protest, the courage of obtaining food and water under the threat of death, the superiority of refusing to allow the Germans their final wish to gloat over panic and despair. Even passivity was a form of resistance. To die with dignity was a form of resistance. To resist the demoralizing, brutalizing force of evil. To refuse to be reduced to the level of animals, to live through the torment, to outlive the tormentors, these too were resistance. Merely to give a witness of these events in testimony was, in the end, a contribution to victory. Simply to survive was a victory of the human spirit.Gilbert, Martin. London: St Edmundsbury Press 1986
Organizations
- American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee
- Antyfaszystowska Organizacja Bojowa
- Betar
- Fareinigte Partizaner Organizacje
- HaShomer HaTzair
- Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee
- Zionist youth movement
- Żydowska Organizacja Bojowa
- Zydowski Zwiazek Walki
Jewish resistance fighters
![Belorussia, 1943. A Jewish partisan group of the brigade named after Chkalov. ([link])](http://encycl.opentopia.com/enimages/thumb/4312/4311052/210px-1943_Belorussia_Jewish_resistance_group.jpg "Belorussia, 1943. A Jewish partisan group of the brigade named after Chkalov. ([link])")
- Mordechaj Anielewicz
- Yitzhak Arad
- Bielski partisans
- Masha Bruskina
- Eugenio Calò
- Franco Cesana
- Szymon Datner
- Abba Kovner
- Dov Lopatyn
- Moše Pijade
- Haviva Reik
- Hannah Szenes
- Simcha Zorin
Uprisings
- Będzin Ghetto Uprising
- Białystok Ghetto Uprising
- Częstochowa Ghetto Uprising
- Kraków Ghetto Uprising
- Łachwa Ghetto Uprising
- Łódź Ghetto Uprising
- Lwów Ghetto Uprising
- Marcinkance Ghetto Uprising
- Mińsk Mazowiecki Ghetto Uprising
- Pińsk Ghetto Uprising
- Rosenstrasse protest
- Sosnowiec Ghetto Uprising
- Warsaw Ghetto Uprising
- Wilno Ghetto Uprising
See also
- Anti-fascism
- Ghetto uprising
- History of the Jews during World War II
- Jewish Brigade
- Resistance during World War II
- Resistance movement
- Special Interrogation Group (SIG)
External links
- [About the Holocaust]
- [Jewish Partisan Educational Foundation]
- [Jewish Partisan Group Near Vilna]
- [Kurzbiographien]
- [Partisan Rachel Rudnitzky After Liberation]
- [Partisans in Vilna]
- [Partisans of Vilna]
- [Rozka Korczak & Abba Kovner with members of the United Partisan Organization (FPO)]
- [Vilna Partisans]
Notes and references
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