hfavr@hogpd.UUCP (A.REED) (05/04/84)
Michael Condict asks (START OF QUOTE): The past week has been devoted to remembrance of the Holocaust. Not being as well-informed about the events that led up to it as I would like, I am unable to understand exactly how it could have happened at all. In particular, I wonder why more of those who were taken to death camps did not physically resist. Was it because they did not know what their fate would be or because things were arranged by the Fascist government in such a way that they had no alternative? What was different in the case of the Warsaw ghetto uprising, where there was open rebellion? (END OF QUOTE). I would like to contribute an attempt at an answer. For the record, both my parents survived as Resistance fighters in Polesie (Eastern Poland, now annexed to Byelorusia). My great-grandparents, grandparents, and an older brother were murdered by the Nazis. I was born after the war. Much of MC's question is based on a misapprehension of fact. Jewish resistance to the Nazis was far more widespread than American media acknowledge. There were uprisings not only in the Warsaw ghetto, but also in nearly all other ghettos, most concentration camps, and even some death camps (e. g. Treblinka). Jewish guerilla units were numerous, and often effective in disrupting German supply lines. Some of these units were quite large. My parents were members of a regimental-strength group commanded by Sergei Kaplun. This group operated an airstrip, which was often used by the Polish government-in-exile to transport their personnel in and out of occupied Poland. Other Jewish Resistance units of comparable size were numerous, and at least two were at Division strength, with over 10,000 combattants. In addition to armed resistance, civil resistance efforts included escape networks, groups smuggling food to counter Nazi-organized starvation in ghettos and concentration camps, etc. etc. One possible source of confusion over the extent of Jewish resistance is traceable to the antisemitic tendencies of several Allied governments, including Poland and Russia, which never referred to Jewish resistance units except as "patriotic partisans". The same is true of public German records, edited to conform to the Nazi myth that Jews were "subhumans" incapable of fighting. Secret German records of the period show that most anti-Nazi resistance in Eastern Europe was in fact Jewish. The real question, then, is not why there wasn't Jewish resistance, but why Jewish resistance was not more successful. Part of the answer is that the Nazis were efficient and well-organized, and that they were enthusiastically supported by significant pluralities in most of the occupied countries, and by an overwhelming majority of the Germans, who were quite adept at turning themselves into perfectly mindless killing machines required by National Socialism. The other part has to do with several factors: 1) In most European countries the population, obviously including Jews, had been disarmed by pre-war governments. Any remaining weapons were subject to registration, and while some Jews, including my parents, refused to let their weapons be registered, the majority of European Jews were very law-abiding, and registered their weapons like good little citizens. Early in the occupation the registered weapons were confiscated by the Germans. It is difficult to fight against machine guns with knives, stones, and "Molotov cocktails". 2) Until quite late in the war, allied governments refused asylum to refugees, turning them over to the Nazis. The unspeakable perfidy of Franklin D. Roosevelt's administration in the U. S. is well documented in, e.g., Morse's "While Six Million Died". In 1938, the British government closed the Empire to Jewish refugees with the exception of a minuscule quota allocated to Palestine. To close "illegal" routes to Palestine, the British government exerted diplomatic pressure on the governments of Greece and Yougoslavia to turn Jewish escapees over to the Nazis. Stalin believed Nazi propaganda to the effect that Jews were behind International Capitalism, and until the Nazi invasion of Russia in 1941, his secret police routinely turned Jewish escapees over to the Nazis. For similar reasons, Allied governments refused to supply weapons to most Jewish resistance groups in Europe. 3) The effectiveness of guerilla operations is crucially dependent on the cooperation of the surrounding population. Exploiting antisemitic prejudices previously promoted by Russian governments in Russia, Lithuania, the Ukraine and Eastern Poland, the Nazis added the tactic of blaming Communism on Jews. This was very effective in denying the support of the peasants to Jewish guerilla groups. Where propaganda was not enough, terror was used until it worked: it was not unusual for the Nazis to exterminate an entire village for hiding one Jewish child. 4) Most Eastern European Jews were strictly orthodox, and heroic efforts of the Jewish resistance were often nullified by their fanatical religious observance. Some orthodox Jews, for example, preferred to starve to death rather than eat food that was not known to be kosher, as was unavoidably the case with most food smuggled into the ghettos from the other side of the wall by the Resistance. Some Hassidic sects are extremely pacifistic, and their members refused to use force even against their murderers. Most died, but the descendants of those few who survived and made their way to Israel still refuse to serve in the Israeli Defence Force. 5) Resistance activity requires the ability to act. As in any population, many European Jews were too old, or too young, or sick or infirm to fight. The Nazis did their best to minimize resistance by spreading typhoid, typhus, and other epidemics; starvation etc. I could go on, but that would only serve to hide the most important fact about the Jewish resistance in Europe: difficult though it was, the Resistance did manage to save some 4 million out of the 10 million Jews targeted for genocide by the Nazis. And, of course, its members and their children have learned some hard lessons from the experience. But that is another topic. Adam V. Reed lzmi!adam
martillo@ihuxt.UUCP (Yehoyaqim Martillo) (05/04/84)
While this article makes some good points, there is some factual inaccuracy. The vast majority of Eastern European Jews were not orthodox. The largest concentrations of Eastern European Jews were in Poland, Hungary, and Rumania. There were more bundists in Poland than orthodox Jews. 80% of Hungarian Jews were status quo which is essentially the equivalent of conservative Judaism in the U.S. and the Ashkenazi population of Rumania was approximately 60% assimilated to German culture. While many religious Ashkenazim tended to screw themselves in terms of resistance, likewise the Eastern European Jewish left tended to screw themselves by persistently waiting for the non-Jewish left to rise up and help the Jewish left. Kerets, Hakam Bashi (Chief Rabbi) of Greece was supposed to have lead a rebellion in Auschwitz. Greek Jews who were much more religious on the average than Eastern Europeans (never having been truly emancipted) invariably rebelled in the concentration and death camps. My father's family who are religious were partisans in Yugoslavia and this was hardly unusual. In North Africa local resistance to the Germans was wholly Jewish, and droves of young Jews joined the free French for the purpose of killing Germans. In the battle of El Alamein, 60% of the free French soldiers were North African Jews. 5 of my uncles fought at El Alamein. This resistance to the Germans took on Messianic proportions because North African Jewish services often include a prayer pleading to God that Armelius should not be permitted to kill the Messiah. Armelius is Aramaic for Romulus which in German is Rommel who was threatening the Jewish settlements in Palestine which many North African Hakamim (rabbis) were equating with the coming of the Messiah (how little did they know). Fighting the Germans was considered a milhemet mitswah (jihad).
rao@utcsstat.UUCP (Eli Posner) (05/08/84)
From: martillo@ihuxt.UUCP (Yehoyaqim Martillo) >This resistance to the Germans took on Messianic proportions because North >African Jewish services often include a prayer pleading to God that >Armelius should not be permitted to kill the Messiah. Armelius is Aramaic >for Romulus which in German is Rommel who was threatening the Jewish >settlements in Palestine which many North African Hakamim (rabbis) were >equating with the coming of the Messiah (how little did they know). I just want to clarify one thing Mr. Martillo mentioned in the above quote. Was Mr. Martillo implying when he said "how little did they know" with regards to the Rabbis of North Africa belief that Jewish settlements in Israel was part of the coming of Messiah (atchalta di'geula), that they are and were wrong ????!!!! If so , I am shocked that Mr. Martillo could ignore the obvious events that are occuring in the Mid. East, and not connect them with what we were told would happen in the Mesianic period. For example, 1) the blossoming of fields and meadows in Israel only occured once Israel was under Jewish rule. Before that, under Arab rule, Israel was a barren wasteland. 2)Kibbutz Goliot- After 2000 years, Jews are beginning to re-settle Eretz Yisrael, coming from all over the world. 200 years ago, who could have thought this possible? 3) "Ain bein Yimot hamasheich li'yomeinu ellah SHEE'BOOD GOLIOT"-Mesechet Megila The only change in the Messianic period will be the that the Jews will have self-rule, and not be enslaven by any foreign force. Self-Expanatory. Enough of this for now. My apologies to Mr. Martillo if I misinterpreted him. >Fighting the Germans was considered a milhemet mitswah (jihad). Obviously it was. It's straight-forwardly written in the Rambam. -- Eli Posner {allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!utcsstat!rao