First and foremost, the definition of resistance must be explained before analyzing the historical evidence of Jewish activities during the Holocaust. Yehuda Bauer defines Jewish resistance during the Holocaust as any group action consciously taken in opposition to known or surmised laws, actions, or intentions directed against the Jews by the Germans and their supporters. With this definition, forms of Jewish resistance will be analyzed through known ghetto uprisings and resistance movements during the Holocaust. Far from going to slaughter like sheep, the Jews resisted in Warsaw, Vilna, Bialystock and others, and in concentration camps such as Treblinka, Sobibor, and the rest, as well as in the forests.
After the outbreak of World War II, Hitler established death camps
to secretly implement what he called “the final solution of the Jewish
problem”. In one operation
alone, over 30,000 Jews were killed at Babi Yar, outside Kiev.
After 450,000 Jews were sent to death camps from the Warsaw Ghetto,
news of their fate led the last 60,000 to rebel, fighting until they were
killed, captured, or escaped to join the resistance in 1943.
Forms of Jewish resistance can be seen in the Vilna Ghetto. This was a city that in pre-war Poland was the Jerusalem of
Lithuania, and a center for Jewish life.
In July of 1941 Gestapo trucks began cruising the streets,
systematically combing the homes and abducted many Jews, many never
returned. In the space of
three days, from August 31 until September 2, eight thousand Jewish people
were taken away for extermination. But
this was only the beginning.
Social resistance can
be visible from the formation of the opening of a ghetto university in
Vilna with faculties of philosophy and social science, linguistics,
natural history, chemistry physics and mathematics.
Through this cultural awakening, even in the way station for death,
the ghetto cultural life flourished.
By 1943 in the Vilna Ghetto, a
small group of Jews met and planned, and out of this meeting grew the
United Partisan Organization. The
UPO objectives were to prepare for an armed revolt in the ghetto, and to
defend the lives and honor of the Jews, and to carry out acts of sabotage
against German installations and institutions.
Ammunition and weapons were scarce and when there were no weapons
to fight with, they used knives, sticks, or whatever they could obtain.
Through smuggling and underground networks, the UPO was able to
gain a rich arsenal of weapons from outside sources (Tec, 63).
During the summer of 1943, when it became apparent that the
destruction of the ghetto was close at hand did many fighters fight
against the Germans. Eventually
many fighters retreated into the forest where they would continue the
fight with the murderers. In
a last ditch attempt, many of the remaining Jewish resistance fighters
escaped the German lines via the sewer system.
The fighters were on a retreat mode as German and Gestapo policed
came down hard on the UPO fighters, with a force that eventually disbanded
the group into small broken up groups.
Organizations such as the UPO give historical account that young
men and women were not willing to be slaughtered like sheep, without
fighting. There is plenty of
evidence that resistance to the Nazis was carefully planned despite the
lack of armaments and other needs needed to participate in a
successful rebellion. Another form of Jewish resistance can be noted in Bialystok.
The pioneering organizers of the resistance movement in Bialystok
were surviving Jewish Communists, who had suffered during the June and
July massacres who went underground under Soviet occupation.
Their first acts of resistance were to spread leaflets and posters
warning Jewish masses against policies and aided many people by smuggling
food, clothing and medicine into their camps (Tec, 83). Since Bialystok is surrounded by immense forests, this made
it possible for resistance fighters in the Bialystok ghetto to choose, to
some extent, where they would strike against the Nazis. They stole weapons from German barracks and obtained other
weapons left scattered over the countryside following the many battles
that had taken place before. Some
weapons that were smuggled into the ghettos were carried out by women and
girls (Tec, 154).
In Defiance: The Bielski Partisans, author Tec states
that on the day of the destruction of the Bialystok ghetto, the weapons
possessed by the fighters amounted to: twenty five German rifles, roughly
one hundred rifles and pistols, a few tommy guns, some hand grenades, and
one heavy machine gun (Tec, 94). There
were also a few sticks of dynamite, bottles filled with vitriol, and an
unspecified number of axes, knives, bayonets, and scythes.
With this arsenal the freedom fighters prepared to take on the
Nazis. A revolt in the
Treblinka death factory appears to have influenced Himmler in favor of
immediate and total destruction of the Bialystok ghetto.
During the night of August 15, 1943 the Nazis surrounded the ghetto
with police forces armed with sub-machine guns as well as artillery and
aircraft to deal with the revolt. The
organized group the United Defense Organization put out a proclamation to
their within their own community. The
proclamation urged the Jews not to go freely to their deaths but to fight
for their lives to their last
breath, greeting their enemy with tooth and nail, axe and knife. The UDO objectives were to storm the fence and get into the
forest for protection. The
Nazis had to use overwhelming fire power to destroy the strongholds of
resistance and sent their tanks. They
were greeted with grenades and homemade bombs.
The Germans withdrew and with the help of several aircraft, the
Germans were able to crush the resistance.
Groups of underground fighters tried to break through the German
lines, but on August 26, the last of these groups having run out of
ammunition, was liquidated.
