RESISTANCE DURING THE HOLOCAUST

RESISTANCE
The word resist comes from the Latin root sistere to stop: re+sist. So the denotation is to struggle against someone or something,to try to prevent by action or argument. So resistance, the noun, 'is the refusal to accept or comply with something'(Oxford Dictionary).

CONTEXT
The Holocaust was the murder of six million Jews and millions of others by the Nazis and their collaborators during World War II. Mass killings began in June 1941 with the shooting of Jewish civilians during the German invasion of the Soviet Union. At the end of 1941, the Germans began deporting Jews to killing centers in occupied Poland. By May 1945, about two out of every three Jews in Europe had been murdered.

Prewar European Jewish population: 9.5 million.

Before World War II, more than half of the world's Jewish population lived in Europe. Most Jews lived in eastern Europe, primarily in the Soviet Union and Poland. The Nazi party came to power in Germany in 1933. The Germans moved to extend their power in central Europe, annexing Austria and destroying Czechoslovakia. Germany invaded Poland in 1939, beginning World War II. Over the next two years, German forces conquered most of Europe. The Germans established ghettos in occupied eastern territories, isolating and persecuting the Jewish population. Nazi anti-Jewish policy expanded with the invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941. Mobile killing units murdered Jews, Roma (also called Gypsies), Soviet political commissars, and others. The Germans and their collaborators deported Jews to killing centers in occupied Poland. At the largest killing center, Auschwitz-Birkenau, transports arrived almost daily from across Europe. By war's end, almost six million Jews and millions of others had perished in the Holocaust.

Postwar Jewish Population, ca. 1950: 3.5 million

— United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

Look carefully at the maps below to draw conclusions about changes in the Jewish population.





What is propoganda?

Propaganda is biased information designed to shape public opinion and behavior.
Propaganda simplifies complicated issues or ideology for popular consumption, is always biased, and is geared to achieving a particular end. Propaganda generally employs symbols, whether in written, musical, or visual forms, and plays upon and channels complex human emotions towards a desired goal. It is often employed by governmental and private organizations to promote their causes and institutions and denigrate their opponents. Propaganda functions as just one weapon in the arsenal of mass persuasion.(The Holocaust Museum: Propaganda)


Examine the following propaganda posters of Hitler and Jews. Think about the impression created and the ways this impression is built in the minds of the viewer.













http://www.ushmm.org/propaganda/resources/



PYRAMID OF HATE





First They Came
First they came for the Communists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Communist
Then they came for the Socialist
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Socialist
Then they came for the trade unionists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a trade unionist
Then they came for the Jews
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew
Then they came for me
And there was no one left
To speak out for me.

Pastor Martin Niemoller

The Agitator by George Grosz painted 1928 during the years of the Weimar Republic





PART B: OBSTACLES TO RESISTANCE

Consider what Father says to Bruno in Boyne's The Boy in Striped Pyjamas: 'Accept the situation in which you find yourself and everything will be so much easier' (53)

Using the sources write a paragraph that examines why people remained silent, 'accepted the situation in which (they) found themselves'.

Go to the Holocaust Museum for more information about resistance: