Holocaust Resistance Compiled by Barbara Kellogg from A Teachers Guide to the Holocaust at http://fcit.usf.edu/holocaust/people/resister.htm on 26 Feb. 2007

Diary entry while living in the Warsaw Ghetto "It is almost a mitzvah (an honorable deed) to dance. Every dance is a protest against our oppressors." Chaim Kaplan Diary entry while living in the Warsaw Ghetto February 20, 1941

Unarmed Acts of Resistance Survival Underground resistance organizations Provided food Received and transmitted news and information Boosted morale Published opposition newspapers Secretly practiced forbidden religion

                                                                       In the woods of the Ukraine in 1943, partisans are receiving a transmission from the Soviet Information Bureau. Photo credit: Central State Archive of Film, Photo, and Photographic documents, courtesy of USHMM

Unarmed Acts of Resistance continued Jews created an underground economy Illegal mills and workshops Secret marketplace Smuggling goods in and out of ghettos Sabatoge at forced labor factories Slow work Destructiveness Starting fires Damage machinery vs. repair Secret schools

Children scale a wall to smuggle food into the ghetto Children scale a wall to smuggle food into the ghetto. Conditions were so extreme that they engaged in this activity despite the proclamation issued by Dr. Ludwig Fischer (Governor of the Warsaw District from October, 1939 to January, 1945), imposing a death penalty on Jews who left the ghetto and on those who helped them. Photo credit: Meczenstwo Walka, Zaglada Zydów Polsce 1939-1945. Poland. No. 124.

More acts of resistance Jewish self-help organizations Arose out of existing pre-war service groups In the Warsaw ghetto, these groups offered food at public and children's kitchens Distributed clothing and furniture Provided child care activities Helped refugees find housing Performed other community work Documentation of persecution Diaries Documents

Dr. Emanuel Ringelblum Archives Three of the ten metal boxes and two milk cans used to preserve documents and materials of detailed information about life in the Warsaw Ghetto. In September, 1946, the metal boxes were discovered under the ruins of a house. In December, 1950, the milk cans with the second part of the archives were recovered. These materials and documents are now in the Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw. Photo credit: Meczenstwo Walka, Zaglada Zydów Polsce 1939-1945. Poland. No. 150.

More Resistance Camps of families in forests who fled persecution Leaving the country Sending children away to safer places Posing as non-Jews Helping Jews escape persecution Raising / Housing Jews and passing them off as non-Jewish family members Continued creation of art, literature, and poetry

--Hitler. Nuremberg speech, Sept. 11, 1935 "Art is a noble mission. Those who have been chosen by destiny [Vorsehung] to reveal the soul of a people, to let it speak in stone or ring in sounds, live under a powerful, almighty, and all-pervading force. They will speak a language, regardless of whether others understand them. They will suffer hardship rather than become unfaithful to the star which guides them from within." --Hitler. Nuremberg speech, Sept. 11, 1935

Birkenau. Painting of Königsgraben from the ceiling of the penal company barrack at Birkenau. Photo credit: Florida Center for Instructional Technology.

Auschwitz. Cherubs painting and Horseback Riders from a washroom in block 7. Photo credit: Florida Center for Instructional Technology.

Armed Resistance Great Britain and the Soviet Union = primary sources of resistance support Arms also bought from Poles and Russians, at great cost and at enormous risk Guerilla warfare Cutting telephone, telegraph, and electrical lines Destruction of power stations Sabotage transportation links by blowing up bridges, roads, and railway equipment Sabotage of factories that produced materials for the Axis powers

Partisan Group in Naliboki Forest                                                                                             This group of partisans operated in the Naliboki forest (Baranowicze region) of Poland. Photo credit: Meczenstwo Walka, Zaglada Zydów Polsce 1939-1945. Poland. No. 506

Resistance in the ghettos There was some armed resistance in several ghettos Jewish resistance was concentrated in the Polish ghettos of Warsaw, Krakow, Bialystok and Vilna. Warsaw's insurgency was the most notable. In November, 1942, the Warsaw ghetto-based Jewish Combat Organization (ZOB) was formed. Mordechai Anielewicz was the brave commander-in-chief of this armed uprising. The Warsaw Ghetto uprising began on April 19, 1943, and continued for about a month. Battle initiated by the Jewish fighting forces in Warsaw when German troops entered the ghetto to begin the final round of deportations.

One way Nazis suppressed the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising was to burn blocks of buildings. Photo credit: National Archives, courtesy of USHMM Photo Archives

LEFT: A woman hangs from a balcony, preparing to drop to the street and the waiting SS. Photo credit: Glowna Komisja Badania Zbrodni Przeciwko Narodowi Polskiemu, courtesy of USHMM Photo Archives. Below Photo Credit: Poland National Archives. RIGHT: Mattresses and furniture lie piled next to an apartment building to provide a place for the inhabitants to jump during the suppression of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. The original German caption reads: "A place that had been readied for jumping and escape."

Captured Jews from the suppression of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising are led by the SS to the Umschlagplatz for deportation. The original German caption reads alternately: "To the Umschlagplatz" or "Deportation of Jews." Photo credit: Poland National Archives

One of the most famous pictures of the Holocaust One of the most famous pictures of the Holocaust. German stormtroopers force Warsaw ghetto dwellers of all ages to move, hands up, during the Jewish Ghetto Uprising in April-May 1943. Photo credit: Main Commission for the Investigation of Nazi War Crimes, courtesy of USHMM Photo Archives.

Resistance in the death camps Escape - On August 2, 1943, inmates of Treblinka, in an armed revolt, killed SS men and escaped the death camp. Fleeing to the woods, some joined the partisan struggle. Revolt - On October 14, 1943, an armed revolt took place in Sobibor. Testimony = art, writing, telling Survival Sabatoge

Pre-War picture of Ala Gertner Born about 1912 in Bedziner One participant in the Sonderkommando uprising in Auschwitz-Birkenau Assigned to the Union Munitions factory Acquainted with Roza Robota (recruited Ala to resistance movement within Auschwitz) Ala then recruited Estusia and Hanka Wajcblum and Regina Safirsztajn since they had direct access to gunpowder. They passed whatever they could steal to Ala Transferred it to Roza Gave it to members of the Sonderkommando. Plan = blow up crematorium and start general uprising Crematorium IV destroyed on October 7, 1944 4 women were directly implicated in the theft of the explosives All four were arrested and tortured Jan.5, 1945, all four publicly hanged Photo credit: Anna and Joshua Heilman Collection, courtesy of USHMM Photo Archives.