World History, Culture, and Geography: The Modern World—Semester B

Sample Lesson - Introduction

Lesson 8.14: Jewish Resistance

Even this little boy got in on the Nazi-fighting.
(Source)

Have you ever been backed into a corner? No matter what you tried to do there was no way out? So what do you do when you don't have Patrick Swayze there to stand up for you, Baby?

The Jews had been attacked on all fronts by the outbreak of WWII. Their homes and businesses had been destroyed. They'd been denied their citizenship. They weren't free to marry by their own volition. They were rounded up and forced to live in ghettos, or worse, sent to concentration camps to die of exhaustion or starvation. The Nazis had taken away every resource they had until they were powerless, penniless, and hopeless.

So many Jews suffered and died during this era that it hardly seems like it could have happened in this modern day and age. Not all of them went down without a fight, though. There were brave Jews who stood up against Nazi brutality, as in the case of the uprising that took place in the Warsaw Ghetto.

Likewise, not all Germans adhered to Nazi ideology. There were many brave families who risked their lives to help Jews. One of the most famous records of Jews who went into hiding was recorded by Anne Frank, a young Jewish girl who went into hiding with her family in Amsterdam. The Frank family would later be discovered, arrested, and shipped off to concentration camps, with only Anne's father surviving the Holocaust.

The Jews who couldn't make it into hiding and were victims of life in concentration camps and ghettos drew strength from one another in this darkest of hours. They had a common bond and belief that even the Nazis couldn't take away from them.

Sample Lesson - Reading

Reading 8.8.14: Fighting Back

Armed Resistance

Jews definitely didn't have the advantage when it came to fighting back. First off, they only accounted for less than one percent of the German population. Even after the Nazis began their European conquest, on the whole, Jews were a small segment of the population. Their numbers were made even scarcer by their systematic murder at Nazi hands.

Moreover, they had few resources with which to work. They certainly didn't have any money or influence in society left to aid in their fight. They lacked military training and had few weapons. Even with all of these setbacks, there were several cases of armed resistance both in Eastern and Western Europe. Read about the resistance here.

One of the most famous instances of armed resistance was the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. Over half a million Jews resided in the ghetto in the summer of 1942. All summer long inhabitants had watched as thousands of Jews were forcibly deported from the ghetto to concentration camps to die. Two underground resistance groups formed in the ghetto—the Jewish Combat Organization and the Jewish Military Union. Their combined numbers reached about 750 members. The groups used contacts in the Polish resistance movement to secure a small amount of firearms and explosives.

The SS had received orders to liquidate the ghetto and deport all able-bodied occupants to forced-labor camps in Lublin. As these deportations began in January of 1943, the resistance began. Armed fighters attacked SS officers conducting the deportation. While many of the Jewish resisters died, they were able to postpone the deportation and plan for a larger attack.

Their chance came in April when the SS planned to liquidate the entire ghetto. Residents of the ghetto hid in self-constructed bunkers and buildings and fought back the Germans with whatever firearms they had or were able to construct. The Germans responded by burning down the entire ghetto to force the Jews from hiding. Thousands of Jews were killed and tens of thousands were sent to forced labor camps or gas chambers to die.

Though the resistance was put down, it was the most organized and significant resistance movement to occur during the Holocaust. It inspired resistance movements in other ghettos as well as in concentration camps. In Treblinka, Jews grabbed weapons from the armory and set fire to the camp; this resulted in 200 Jews being able to escape. The Nazis found and killed half of the escapees. Token numbers of Jews were able to escape from other concentration camps, but like the Warsaw uprising, most resistance movements were put down with deadly force. Despite their failures, these efforts speak to the courage and determination of the human spirit.

Spiritual Resistance

Most Jews couldn't fight the Germans with weapons. That doesn't mean they didn't find ways to fight back. Spiritual resistance, the refusal to let the Nazis deprive Jews of their religion and culture, was hugely important in ghettos and concentration camps. See here how Jews silently fought against Nazi control in the ghettos.

This same spirit of determination to overcome was found in concentration camps where prisoners banded together to lift one another's spirits. Women in the Ravensbruck camp made gifts for one another, wrote poetry, and celebrated birthdays and holidays. Prisoners shared information, and even produced underground newspapers in some cases. Prisoners kept records of life in the camps and held secret religious meetings when possible. Those at labor camps sometimes sabotaged the goods they were helping manufacture, such as missiles to be used by the German Army. While the effect this had on the war effort is unknown, it had a tremendous effect on morale among prisoners.

This refusal to allow the Nazis to strip their lives of meaning and purpose was perhaps the best way they could prevent the Nazis from "winning." No matter the inhumanity of the Nazi regime, they could not take away the humanity of the Jews.

Going into Hiding

Some Jews were lucky enough to hide from the SS officers tasked with rounding them up and sending them to ghettos and camps. Their salvation usually came from non-Jewish rescuers who helped them go into hiding. Read about some of these rescuers here.

Often, parents sought out rescuers to take in their children while they were taken away by the Nazis. Some children could live openly with their new families as they were able to conceal their Jewish identities. They took on new names, new religions, and entirely new cultures to evade capture by the Nazis. Living this way required forged documents necessary to create an entirely new identity. These documents were dangerous to obtain, and was just one of the risks rescuers took in helping Jewish children and families.

Those who couldn't live openly went into hiding. They were still usually taken in by a family and then hidden in attics or cellars. They had to learn to hide at a moment's notice, staying quiet in cramped spaces for hours on end at times.

The rarer instance was the family who was able to stay together, such as the Frank family. Anne Frank, a German Jew who emigrated to the Netherlands, went into hiding with her family after her older sister was called up to be sent to a labor camp. The family hid with a fellow Jewish family in a secret annex in the back of Anne's father, Otto's, company building. They were assisted by four of Otto's co-workers who were not Jewish; ultimately, only Otto survived out of the eight people in hiding.

The Franks' story tells of the reality that Jews in hiding faced every day—being discovered. When the Franks' hiding place was discovered, all of the occupants were sent to Auschwitz where the men and women were separated from one another. Anne's mother died at Auschwitz, while Anne and her sister died of typhus after being sent to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in Germany; both girls died mere weeks before British soldiers liberated the camp.

Anne's diary, which she kept while in hiding in Amsterdam, has become the voice of Jews in hiding during the Holocaust. Her descriptions of life in hiding give insight into the reality of life during the war. Her unwavering faith in humanity has given hope to countless readers in the decades since her death.

Sample Lesson - Activity

Activity 8.14: Dear Diary

Read the following five excerpts from Anne Frank's diary and answer the questions that follow in the specified number of sentences.

Excerpt 1:

July 8th 1942: "At three o'clock (Hello had left but was supposed to come back later), the doorbell rang. I didn't hear it, since I was out on the balcony, lazily reading in the sun. A little while later Margot appeared in the kitchen doorway looking very agitated. "Father has received a call-up notice from the SS," she whispered. "Mother has gone to see Mr. van Daan" (Mr. van Daan is Father's business partner and a good friend.) I was stunned. A call-up: everyone knows what that means. Visions of concentration camps and lonely cells raced through my head. How could we let Father go to such a fate? "Of course he's not going," declared Margot as we waited for Mother in the living room. "Mother's gone to Mr. van Daan to ask whether we can move to our hiding place tomorrow. The van Daans are going with us. There will be seven of us altogether." Silence. We couldn't speak. The thought of Father off visiting someone in the Jewish Hospital and completely unaware of what was happening, the long wait for Mother, the heat, the suspense – all this reduced us to silence.

Excerpt 2:

October 9th 1942: "Today I have nothing but dismal and depressing news to report. Our many Jewish friends and acquaintances are being taken away in droves. The Gestapo is treating them very roughly and transporting them in cattle cars to Westerbork, the big camp in Drenthe to which they're sending all the Jews. Miep told us about someone who'd managed to escape from there. It must be terrible in Westerbork. The people get almost nothing to eat, much less to drink, as water is available only one hour a day, and there's only one toilet and sink for several thousand people. Men and women sleep in the same room, and women and children often have their heads shaved. Escape is almost impossible; many people look Jewish, and they're branded by their shorn heads. If it's that bad in Holland, what must it be like in those faraway and uncivilized places where the Germans are sending them? We assume that most of them are being murdered. The English radio says they're being gassed. Perhaps that's the quickest way to die. I feel terrible. Miep's accounts of these horrors are so heartrending… Fine specimens of humanity, those Germans, and to think I'm actually one of them! No, that's not true, Hitler took away our nationality long ago. And besides, there are no greater enemies on earth than the Germans and Jews."

Excerpt 3:

November 19th 1942: "Mr. Dussel has told us much about the outside world we've missed for so long. He had sad news. Countless friends and acquaintances have been taken off to a dreadful fate. Night after night, green and gray military vehicles cruise the streets. They knock on every door, asking whether any Jews live there. If so, the whole family is immediately taken away. If not, they proceed to the next house. It's impossible to escape their clutches unless you go into hiding. They often go around with lists, knocking only on those doors where they know there's a big haul to be made. They frequently offer a bounty, so much per head. It's like the slave hunts of the olden days… I feel wicked sleeping in a warm bed, while somewhere out there my dearest friends are dropping from exhaustion or being knocked to the ground. I get frightened myself when I think of close friends who are now at the mercy of the cruelest monsters ever to stalk the earth. And all because they're Jews."

Excerpt 4:

February 3rd 1944: "I've reached the point where I hardly care whether I live or die. The world will keep on turning without me, and I can't do anything to change events anyway. I'll just let matters take their course and concentrate on studying and hope that everything will be all right in the end."

Excerpt 5:

July 15th 1944: "It's utterly impossible for me to build my life on foundation of chaos, suffering and death. I see the world being slowly transformed into a wilderness, I hear the approaching thunder that, one day, will destroy us too, I feel the suffering of millions. And yet, when I look up at the sky, I somehow feel that everything will change for the better, that this cruelty too will end, that peace and tranquility will return once more. In the meantime, I must hold on to my ideals. Perhaps the day will come when I'll be able to realize them."