Jewish Resistance in the Holocaust

Jewish Resistance in the Holocaust

When talking about the Holocaust many of us will wonder why Jews didn't fight against their murderers. We don't know enough about those tragic days. They did!

Hitler dreamed of killing all Jews as he found them not people at all. He planed to gather all Jews and execute all of them: men, women, and children. No one nation it the world has never been exterminated like Jews by Hitler and his cruel system.

As we know Jews are very smart and very peaceful nation and it was really hard to resist German soldiers, police and SS. Their resistance was spiritual and physical. They had to resist or they would not survive as a nation. Spiritual resistance means their wish to live, to save their children, preserve their culture and national originality. Jews gathered in ghettos to warship God, to discuss their critical situation and try to find the way out. They never forgot about their children and even in such tragic conditions found time and wish to teach them. They wanted their kids to be honest and good people, know their own language, traditions and culture. They knew if they don't do it then Jews will die as nation with long history and beautiful culture. Some of them even being in jails and concentration camps tried to write down main events and we owe to them our knowledge about Nazi crimes and attitude to people.

But as J. Greene writes in his book Witness: Voices from the Holocaust resistance was not only spiritual. Thousands of Jews realized if they don't fight they would die. First Jews who called their nation to fight against Fascists were inhabitants of Vilnius ghetto. They started a great resistance of a small but brave nation. Those Jews who worked at plants and factories had broken many valuable devices there; as they didn't t want to work for Hitler who was killing their wives and children.

But Germans had foreseen that. Nazi police made special conditions for Jews to live and to work. Gestapo knew practically everything about every inhabitant of a ghetto.

That's why Jewish patriots had to do everything very carefully. They managed producing self-made knives, shells and some explosives but it was not enough. They didn't have qualitative weapons and shells and always suffered for shortage of ammunition. What about numerous jails and concentration camps: their resistance was practically impossible. But it took place there as well. Jews didn't give up. They believed in victory and did everything they could to gain it.

Main idea of Jewish resistance as Michael Marrus says in his book The Holocaust of History was not only to survive but also to remain humans. Thousands of people in ghettos and camps wished not to fall, to preserve human features in themselves, preserve their society, to resist terror and death. "Survive but remain a human" was their motto.

In some ghettos (Kaunas, Minsk) Jewish patriots gathered in armed groups and tried reaching woods where they formed guerilla forces. In 1942-1943 about 25 thousand of Jewish guerillas fought against fascist in occupied Soviet territories and Poland. They killed German soldiers, destructed police offices, bridges, railways and electricity stations. Also they liberated another Jews.

Maybe the most tragic and greatest event in the history of Holocaust was Warsaw ghetto rebellion. Thousands of people started killing fascist forces. Rebellion lasted for 3 days but surely Jews had no chance to win regular German army forces and their elite SS. About 1600 rebels were executed but this episode of WW2 will always remind us about heroism of brave people who died but had never been turned into slaves.