Students often ask, "why didn't people (especially the Jews) fight back?" Answer: they did. Resistance was continuous and widespread throughout the twelve years of the Third Reich, in Germany itself and in every country occupied by the Nazis. It is true that many Jews did not resist, but others did - by escaping, by fighting back, sometimes even in the concentration camps. The most famous case of Jewish resistance during the war was the Warsaw Ghetto uprising. When the Jews interned in the ghetto learned that 300,000 people deported from Warsaw had been killed at Treblinka, they organized a rebellion and fired on German troops who came to deport more prisoners in April1943. The Jews took over the ghetto and were able to keep the Germans out for some four weeks, until an overwhelming assault retook the ghetto. Seven thousand resisters were shot. Many other, lesser examples can be cited. Most acts of resistance were, however, singular and isolated - one man, woman or child fighting back - and many of these cases are lost to history.
Another form of resistance is the protection of Jews and other victims by ordinary people - "good Germans" or other "Aryans" who would never have been targeted by the Nazis. They did not have to help, but thousands of them did, at great risk of their lives and the lives of their families. Dutch housewives, French nuns, German workers, Polish farmers, even the King of Denmark did their part to protect the victims of Nazism. Many died for it. Many have been honored by the Israeli government as "Righteous Gentiles."
Several countries, notably Poland and France, had highly organized resistance movements receiving aid from the Allies. These groups were mainly interested in intelligence gathering and military action against the Germans, but they did sometimes help Jews. The Dutch Resistance was probably more active in this area than most others. In other regions, especially Poland and the Ukraine, a decentralized network of guerrilla fighters usually called "partisans" were active agains the occupying forces. Many Jewish refugees were partisans.
research links
Holocaust and Jewish Resistance Heritage Museum, Israel
US Holocaust Museum information on resistance
more on resistance from the Jewish Virtual Library
lesson plans on resistance movements from a teachers' website
more teachers' resources from the University of San Francisco
website of AMGOT, a French Resistance organization, with many links
Polonia Media Network site on Polish resistance
a Warsaw Ghetto photo album
Warsaw Ghetto uprising information from Aish haTorah
Mechelen Museum of Deportation and the Resistance, Belgium
good information on rescuers, famous and otherwise, from the Jewish Virtual Library
good Righteous Gentiles sources from PBS
Righteous among the Nations website from Israeli government
