Examples Of Resistance During The Holocaust

A popular question repeatedly asked that usually goes unanswered is this: did the Jewish people even retaliate against their captors during the Holocaust? The answer is this: Yes. Resistance comes in all forms. Continuing to participate in spiritual practices was just as much an act of rebellion during the Holocaust as defending oneself with a gun. Not everything is simply black and white, but rather many different shades of gray. The Jewish people all resisted during the Holocaust in their own ways, whether it was by violence, or by just not showing fear when death became inevitable. The Holocaust is “a term for methodical persecution, [was the] enslavement, and extermination of European Jewry by Nazi Germany” (Rossel Holocaust). This tragic

But only some lashed out violently against their captors. An example of this would be the Warsaw Ghetto. The last 60,000 Jews remaining in the Warsaw ghetto decided to revolt after 450,000 had already been sent on to death camps (Rossel Holocaust). Obviously, the Jews were tired of sitting back, waiting to die. Many Jews revolted in camps, killing centers, ghettos, etc., in German areas, in impossible circumstances (“Common Questions about the Holocaust”), despite the fact that the Nazis used hope and terror “skillfully to keep Jews under control until they could be destroyed” (Rossel Holocaust). Because “Jews were always told to have hope” (Rossel The Holocaust 74). Hope was the biggest and worst weapon the Nazis could have used against the Jews in the situation, when the chances of Jewish survival were as slim as they were, because it gave the Jews false hope that they would eventually get out of the camps. When in reality, most Jews had no chance of getting out, at least according to the Nazis. Yet, the Jewish prisoners were not afraid of using violence, if it meant sticking up for their ways of life. They were aware of the consequences if they lost, but were still prepared to fight for what they believed in. In any way, shape or

History proves that the Jews supposedly did not resist, that they were willing to take orders (Friedman). While accounts could prove this, there could be many reasons for this streak of behavior. For one, “the Jews were doomed even before the first shot was fired” (Friedman), and the prisoners knew this. So in order to stay alive for as long as possible, “Jews studied, prayed, wrote, observed festivals and fasts, and refrained from committing suicide” (Rossel). However, in the camps, everything changed. The circumstances were entirely different and the ways of resistance, although just as significant, became smaller and more ordinary. As Rossel claimed in his bestselling book, “The only resistance possible for most Jews was the effort simply to stay alive” (Rossel The Holocaust 78). Jewish people also rebelled against their captors by doing their best to remain as human beings, despite their living conditions (Friedman). The goal of the Nazis was to make the Jews seem inferior, to make them feel like animals. The prisoners not allowing the Germans to get that satisfaction is a form of revolution in itself, because the Jews won. “They fought back- if just by stealing scraps of food, by refusing to leave their children, by continuing their religious and cultural activities” (Friedman). Although these were simple acts, the Jews did resist in small ways. The European Jews fought so