The dilemma in Jewish Resistance During the Holocaust

However, it appeared to the Jews that the Nazis were quite ready to kill any Jew they could land on in Europe. Those became orderly and obedient, and complied with the Nazis demands were tricked and later executed in mass murder. It took not only the Jews but other non-Jews to find a way in which they could show their resistance to the Nazis activities. This paper, therefore, seeks to examine how the Jews resisted during the period of Holocaust. It is quite important to note the meaning of resistance in relation to the Jews and the Holocaust. These forms of resistance were secretively conducted in different ghettos. They involved activities such as holding secretive gatherings in an effort of celebrating the anniversary of different Jewish concerts and artists; and literary evenings.

More surprisingly, there were a lot of secret works produced by the Jewish directors, authors, and poets into their secret libraries. Other more resistance activities included creation of Jewish schools; printing and distribution of secretive newspapers; maintenance of Jewish religious customs; secretive paintings, drawings and photographs; and preservation of the ghetto life records and secretively hiding them in different places with an hope that they would be later discovered after the war comes to an end (Lanqueur pg 5). Therefore, it was from these cultural activities that people were able to temporarily forget their ghetto life worries and use the activities as their sources of encouragement during the difficult time they were going through. These organizations were aimed at waging an armed struggle against the Nazi particularly from the ghettos with an intention of ensuring active engagement in partisan operations.

In most cases, there were improvised or spontaneous uprisings. Moreover, there was a thorough organization of the Jewish youths into planning and execution of the plans. These forms of resistance occurred in various forms of armed struggle through escapes and hidings. However, these resistance forms faced different challenges in their plans such as successive smuggling of arms into the training grounds within their ghettos, offering adequate training under the difficult conditions in the ghettos, and the establishment of methods for alerting the fighters in case of attacks by the Germans (Larkin pg 139). Partisans This involved the use of guerrilla warfare tactics in the already occupied territories against the Nazis. They organized attacks on the German-held bridges, railroads as well as military installations.

These groups went ahead into organizing the assassination of those who had collaborated with the Nazi. This form of resistance was particularly active in Poland, Belorussia, Greece, Yugoslavia, Italy, and France. The Jewish partisans were actually fighting with an intention of saving their lives from the Germans. These people had a lot of courage to face the risk of execution by the Nazis, deportation to the concentration camps and torture. In most cases, the attempts of saving these people failed and either the Jews being helped to escape or the rescuers were killed in the process. It is through these groups that water, food, and shelter were provided to the escaping Jews (Larkin pg 139). This group believed in doing the right thing as humans and wanted to make a difference during the war.