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 of Jewish resistance, it is important to consider both direct and indirect forms of resistance, as well as avoid diminishing what efforts were made at resistance. Despite many factors making resistance difficult, Jews did perform both direct and indirect resistance, often more than historians have credited to them. As a whole, Jews did not accept their death mutely, as sheep to the slaughter.
Countless internal factors made Jewish resistance extremely difficult. The most explicit of these were the horrific conditions of the ghettos and concentration camps, which lead to malnourishment, as well as the large amounts of hard labour that was forced upon inmates, which caused a general state of poor health. When the living situation grew even worse with the quickly increasing death rates in the concentration camps between 1940 and 1942, conditions were so poor that survival was the sole focus of inmates; there was no time to think of resistance. As the Jews began to become aware of their imminent ext...
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Hilberg, Raul. “Two Thousand Years of Jewish Appeasement.” In The Holocaust, edited by Donald L. Niewyk, 114-120. Lexington: D.C. Heath and Company, 1992.
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"Jewish Resistance". United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, n.d. Web. 19 May 2014.
During the Holocaust there were many varying forms of resistance these include refusal to follow German orders, the formation of the ZOB, continuing Jewish culture, education, religious practices, and keeping archives of historical events. These acts of Jewish resistance all required great courage and bravery as severe consequences were in place for those who did not follow German
Imagine having to live behind the close fences of a concentration camp and endeavor for survival. From January 30, 1933 to May 8, 1945, the Holocaust was the methodical, bureaucratic, state-supported mistreatment and homicide by the Nazi administration and its colleagues. Specified by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, approximately six million Jews were butchered due to the Nazis blaming them for Germany’s failures. The Jew’s experiences range from the release of extreme propaganda, opening of concentration camps, Kristallnacht, their civil liberties dwindling away, and what the remaining prisoners had suffered through to survive the end of the war.
Genocide is the deliberate killing of people who belong to a particular racial, political, or cultural group (Merriam-Webster). This is what Hitler did to the six million Jews during the Holocaust, which led to many Jews fighting back. This paper will talk about how the Holocaust victims fought back against Hitler and his army. The Holocaust was a mass killing of Jews and non-Jews who were viewed as unneeded within the world by Adolf Hitler. Hitler became leader of Germany and tortured and killed many people. With Nazi Germany killing and torturing millions of Jews and non-Jews, victims decided to fight back with armed and spiritual resistance.
History of the Holocaust, written by Yehuda Bauer in the early 1980s, is a comprehensive history of the Holocaust and the surrounding details about Nazism, Anti-Semitism, and the Jewish lifestyle before the Holocaust. Mr. Bauer starts of the book with a general overview of “Who are the Jews?” and how their history led to the Jewish Holocaust. The emergence of the Jews is a controversial, confusing, and conflicting set of theories. Bauer then goes on to discuss how the rise of anti-Semitism was devastating for the Jews.
The Nazis were killing thousands of Jews on a daily basis and for many of the Jewish people death seemed inevitable, but for some of the Jewish population they were not going to go down without a fight as Jewish resistance began to occur. However, the Jewish resistance came in many different forms such as staying alive, clean and observing Jewish religious traditions under the absolute horrendous conditions imposed by the Nazis were just some examples of resistance used by the Jews. Other forms of resistance involved escape attempts from the ghettos and camps. Many of the Jews who did succeed in escaping the ghettos lived in the forests and mountains in family camps and in fighting partisan units. Once free, though, the Jews had to contend with local resident and partisan groups who often openly hostile. Jews also staged armed revolts in the ghettos of Vilna, Bia...
"History of the Holocaust - An Introduction." Jewish Virtual Library - Homepage. American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise. Web. 8 July 2010. .
Did the Jews of Germany do enough to prevent their wholesale massacre by the Nazis? Should they have resisted earlier and to a greater degree? Should the Jews in Western countries acted even when Jews within Germany did not? In 1933, there were several different responses to Germany's increasingly anti-Jewish tendencies. Then, on the eve of destruction, before the Nazis had fully planned for their extermination, the German Jews had a chance to affect Germany and their own lives. I have chosen a few of the German Jewish responses to examine in this essay.
For many years, people time and time again denied the happenings of the Holocaust or partially understood what was happening. Even in today’s world, when one hears the word ‘Holocaust’, they immediately picture the Nazi’s persecution upon millions of innocent Jews, but this is not entirely correct. This is because Jews
One of the many perks of being my mother’s daughter is that I’ve been able to go with her to workshops about the Holocaust both that she’s attended and created. Because of that, I have been fortunate enough to listen to survivors of the Holocaust and other genocides give testimony right in front of me. One thing I’ve observed through my exposure to Holocaust testimony is that I don’t know much about the topic of Holocaust resistance.
Jewish Responses to the Holocaust Some Jews believed that God had “abandoned” them during and after the Holocaust. They believed this because beliefs claim that a Covenant was made between the Jewish religion and God to make sure Jews would go to the promise land if they were to trust and obey the Lord God. If this were true then the Jews were being betrayed and God had broken the Covenant between them. I personally believe that God did not abandon the Jews and that he was testing them as he did with Jobe.
We must first realize that resistance was in no way a survival strategy. Yet, even when it seemed obvious that death was near inevitable, why did they not put up a fight? This argument is still puzzling to many holocaust historians, yet the arguments of Raul Hilberg and Yehuda Bauer offer insight to possible reasons why they did not fight and that resistance was more widespread than most people think.
A Holocaust is a disaster that results in the large-scale destruction of life. Although this name has been used to describe many catastrophes over centuries, today it has a more specific meaning. The Holocaust refers to the annihilation of 6 million Jews, men, women, and children, in addition to other groups of people by Hitler and the Nazi party during World War II. Such a destruction of a particular group or race is called genocide. (Resnick 9)
One can only imagine the horrors that the Jewish community was forced to endure during the rise in power of Adolf Hitler and his relentless Nazi army. As Hitler’s minions demolished through the Jews, no one would have ever thought that a resistance was even plausible, let alone would actually happen. However, in 28 short days the first ever German opposition took place in the Warsaw Ghetto in Poland, and provided the Jews with a glimpse of light at the end of the long road that was the Holocaust.
There is no single definition of ‘Holocaust denial’ or the individuals who preach it. However, scholars may define it as simply the claiming that the Nazis had no plan to exterminate Jews, that the numerous accusations of mass killings via gas chambers are false, or that the figure of 6 million murdered Jews is an irresponsible exaggeration.1 Additionally, many Holocaust deniers believe the Holocaust to be a means of deceit, created by the Soviet communists, the Allies, and the Jews in order to contain the dire truths of their own misdemeanours. In particular, three historians, Nicholas Kollerstrom, Robert Faurisson, and David Irving, emphasize revisionist views on the delicate subject of the Holocaust and why they consider it a myth.