Jewish Resistance: Facts, Omissions, and Distortions Nechama Tec MILES LERMAN CENTER FOR THE STUDY OF JEWISH RESISTANCE The assertions, opinions, and conclusions in this occasional paper are those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect those of the United States Holocaust Memorial Council or of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Third Printing, September 2001 Copyright © 1997 by Nechama Tec, Assigned to the United States Holocaust Memorial Council The mission of the MILES LERMAN CENTER FOR THE STUDY OF JEWISH RESISTANCE—an endowed program of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum—is to educate America and the world about the scope of Jewish physical resistance during the Holocaust through ongoing Museum programs, seminars, collection of artifacts and oral histories, and related projects. THERE ARE MANY MORE questions than answers concerning Jewish resistance during World War II. Most discussions of the subject evince myriad forms of the same queries: Why did the Jews go like sheep to their slaughter? Why did they not stand up to the Germans? Why did they refuse to fight? Behind each of these questions are unexamined assumptions. Each claims that European Jews went to their death passively, without a struggle. Each alleges that conditions necessary for resisting existed but that the Jews failed to take advantage of these conditions. This sort of reasoning easily may lead to some predictable conclusions: If opportunities existed to thwart Nazi aims but the Jews chose not to rely on them, they must bear some responsibility for what had happened to them. These arguments amount to blaming the victims. Blaming the victims, in turn, relieves the perpetrators of some responsibility for their crimes. Such questions and their implications can be settled only by a careful examination of historical facts. Even a cursory glance at available evidence shows that the assumptions upon which these arguments are based are false. First, favorable conditions for Jewish resistance under the German occupation were virtually non-existent. Second, despite the absence of such conditions, there was a significant amount of Jewish resistance during that period. For example, in Poland and other parts of Eastern Europe, Jewish underground organizations were set up in seven major ghettos (Bialystok, Cracow, Czestochowa, Kovno, Minsk, Vilna, and Warsaw) and in forty-five minor ghettos. Jewish armed uprisings took place in five concentration camps and in eighteen forced-labor camps.1 An understanding of Jewish resistance will be enhanced if examined within the context of non-Jewish resistance. Before this is done, however, the meaning of resistance in general and Jewish resistance in particular calls for some preliminary clarification. Henri Michel, an 2 • JEWISH RESISTANCE: FACTS, OMISSIONS, AND DISTORTIONS authority on European resistance movements during World War II, notes that resistance started with gestures of malicious humor and moved on to more explicit refusals to submit. With time, these refusals became organized and sometimes eventually led to actual battles. While every resistance movement developed in stages, each underground group had its special characteristics. These characteristics varied with attitudes of the occupying forces to a particular country or group, with physical and cultural attributes of a country or group, and with the kind of assistance received from Allies. An offer of assistance, in turn, depended on whether the Allies saw a country or a group as important.2 The literature about resistance to the German occupation usually refers to collective, organized forms, which are further differentiated in terms of passive/active, armed/unarmed, spiritual/non spiritual, as well as under many other characterizations.3 By their very nature, all underground activities are dynamic, appearing under a variety of guises. The inherent secrecy of underground activities makes the identification of participants by name and ethnic affiliation difficult. This applies particularly to Jews who joined non-Jewish underground groups. As a matter of definition then, do such individuals count as “Jewish” resisters or not? In most resistance groups, at different stages of the war, Jews were prevented from organizing into separate units. One notable exception was the French Maquis, where the Jews formed their own underground sections. In this instance it appears that even though the Jews made up less than 1% of the French population, an estimated 15–20% of the French Maquis was Jewish.4 Among other exceptions was the Slovakian underground. The situation was very different for those who, for many valid and not-so-valid reasons, would not identify themselves as Jews.5 This applied to the main Polish resistance movement, the Armja Krajowa (AK) or Home Army. As the official military arm of the Polish government-in-exile, in London, each of its many AK subgroups was an extension of one or another of the political parties that made up this government. Some of these parties pursued antisemitic policies while others supported Jews. Depending on the political policy of an AK subgroup, a Jew who wished to join its ranks could be accepted, rejected, or murdered. Because the political ideology of most AK groups was not widely publicized, some Jews concealed their ethnic identity when seeking entrance into the AK. Those who were accepted into the Polish underground movement as Jews often were faced with discrimination. An unspecified number of Jews participated in the smaller Polish underground, the Polish Communist organization (PPR).6 Some Czech Jews joined the Czech elitist underground, which operated in urban centers. Many of these Jews were assimilated and wholeheartedly identified with the Czech Nechama Tec • 3 nation. Others had severed their ties to Judaism long before the Nazi takeover. Most of them, however, did not deny their ethnic origin. As a rule, the operations of the Czech group were limited to the collection and distribution of illegal materials. By 1942, when the Germans stepped up the persecution of Jews, Jewish participation in that underground organization was lessened.7 During the early stages of the development of the Russian, Belorussian, Lithuanian, and Ukrainian partisan movements—1941–1943—antisemitism with its accompanied mistreatment of Jews was common. Loosely organized and poorly equipped partisan bands roamed the forests in those occupied areas. Undoubtedly, some Jews who joined these units preferred to keep their ethnic origin secret. Others, who were admitted as Jews, suffered from antisemitic consequences. By mid-1943, when the Soviet Union was in a better position to establish and exercise control over most of the partisans in these forests, the Jews were officially shielded from antisemitic excesses.8 Also different was the fate of Jewish resisters apprehended as members of non- Jewish underground units. Primo Levi joined an Italian partisan unit. When his group was arrested and interrogated by the Fascist militia, Levi chose to identify himself as an “Italian citizen of the Jewish race.”9 The case of Masha Bruskina, a Jewish girl from the Minsk ghetto, is both similar and different. Already at the beginning of the German occupation, in July 1941, the 17-year-old Masha had become a member of a Communist underground group outside the ghetto. Composed mostly of Belorussian non-Jews, these resisters helped hospitalized Soviet POWs recover from their war wounds. With an improvement in health, they were supplied with clothes and documents and led into the surrounding forest to organize partisan units. After a while, this Minsk underground group was denounced by one of the POWs. Members of this unit, together with Masha Bruskina, were imprisoned and tortured. Without their having revealed any secrets, on October 26, 1941, Masha Bruskina and eleven resisters were publicly hanged. Photos taken by the Germans show her with two of her male comrades being led from the prison through the streets of Minsk; other photos show their execution. As visual documentation of the first public execution of resisters, these photographs were and continue to be widely displayed in museums and similar institutions and are included in encyclopedias and historical books. Viewers of these photos are moved by what they see as a quiet, dignified pride of the condemned. They are particularly touched by the poised yet defiant Masha Bruskina. Over the years, these photographs have captured the hearts and the 4 • JEWISH RESISTANCE: FACTS, OMISSIONS, AND DISTORTIONS imagination of many. Shortly after their deaths, the two Belorussian men photographed with Masha Bruskina were identified by name. Yet despite what many believe to be overwhelming evidence that supports the identity of the girl in the picture as Masha Bruskina, Soviet authorities insisted that she is unknown; more recently officials in Belarus have continued to adhere to this position.10 Regardless of how Jews had joined a non-Jewish underground group and no matter how they felt about their Jewishness, being Jewish inevitably affected them. Jews who concealed their ethnic affiliation had to be concerned about the possibility of discovery. Those who entered a non-Jewish group as Jews were treated differently from others in their organization. As a consequence, the experiences of Jews and non-Jews in non-Jewish underground units varied considerably. Ethnic distinctions, particularly as they applied to Jews and non-Jews, so central under the German occupation, had their reflections in the underground. Whether the resisters wanted it or not, whether they identified themselves as Jews or not, whether they were assimilated or not, their Jewishness must have dominated their lives. But does it necessarily follow that Jews who participated in any underground activities were Jewish resisters? Actually, in differing degrees, the same sorts of observations and characterizations can be made about other economic or national groups. A Pole, for example, who joined the French resistance was considered a Polish resister.11 In short, as long as the community sees an ethnic or national affiliation as a significant personal attribute and acts upon it, this has an impact upon his or her experiences. Recognizing the complexity of the concept of resistance and the need for further specification, this paper is guided by the broad definition that “acts of resistance are motivated by the intention to thwart, limit or end the exercise of power of the oppressor over the oppressed” and that “the goal of resistance must be to lessen the total quantity of oppression.”12 To gain an understanding of Jewish resistance, the forthcoming discussion will examine communal life as forced upon the Jews by the German occupation. Concentrating mainly on Eastern Europe, the principle focus of annihilation of the Jews during WWII, I will deal with three interrelated issues. First, how did Jewish underground activities and resistance emerge and what forms did they assume? Second, what conditions promote resistance and to what extent were these conditions available to the Jews? Third, how do Jewish and non-Jewish underground efforts and resistance compare? These comparisons focus on the shared characteristics of Jewish and non-Jewish underground activities. Nechama Tec • 5 How Did Jewish Underground Activities Emerge and What Forms Did They Assume? Answers to this question depend, to a large extent, on the kind of German anti-Jewish policies employed in specific instances. The German occupation of Europe was oppressive, but the degree and forms of oppression varied from country to country and from group to group. This variation was in part determined by “racial” affinities. For example, as a rule, the Nazis defined Slavs as of only slightly greater racial value than Jews. In contrast, the highest racial rank was reserved for the Germans, followed by the Scandinavians, who bore a close physical resemblance to the Aryan prototype valued by the Nazis. The other European peoples fell somewhere between these two extremes. The Jews were defined as less than human. Officially recognized as a race, all Jews came to be targeted for total biological extinction. Nevertheless, anti-Jewish governmental policies were imposed in different countries at different times. For Jews who lived in Poland and its surrounding countries, the last quarter of 1941 signaled the beginning of the end. Only in 1943, however, did the Nazis decide to move against the Danish Jews by ordering their deportation to concentration camps.13 Regardless of the particular timing, mass murder of Jews was preceded by a carefully orchestrated sliding scale of destructive measures. In the first phase, laws were introduced defining and identifying who was and who was not a Jew. Thereafter the Germans confiscated Jewish property and denied gainful employment to Jews. The next important phase was signaled by the removal of Jews from their homes to specially designated areas, usually sealed-off ghettos, often out of sight of Christian populations. The later the date at which these measures were introduced, the more quickly did the destructive measures follow each other. In Lithuania and in other parts of the former Soviet Union, mass murder of Jews preceded the subsequent formation of ghettos. The initial establishment of ghettos took place after the 1939 conquest of Poland. It was followed by a 1941 phase of ghetto-building, after the German occupation of previously Soviet-held territories. Each ghetto was designed as a temporary community, as a step leading to the final murder of the Jews, either through mass killings or transfer into concentration camps. In Western Europe, Jews were forced into special houses. From these they were transported eastward, to ghettos and to concentration camps. All ghettos were located in the most dilapidated parts of urban centers, where overcrowding, epidemics, starvation, and death were a normal progression. The longer a ghetto lasted, the more coercive was the domination, the more extensive were starvation and 6 • JEWISH RESISTANCE: FACTS, OMISSIONS, AND DISTORTIONS death. German laws and directives continuously rained upon the ghettos. Severe punishment, usually death, followed disobedience of any of them. Frequently these sanctions incorporated the principle of collective responsibility. For example, in the General Government, on October 15, 1941, a new law mandated the death sentence for any Jew who made an unauthorized move outside the Jewish quarters. A violation of this law would result in the juridical murder of not only the “guilty” party but also a similar official murder of unspecified numbers of other ghetto inhabitants who had no connection to the deed.14 Rigid enforcement of discriminatory orders brought the Germans closer to the main goal: annihilation of the Jews. This aim was paralleled by a series of secondary objectives: humiliation and degradation of the Jews before they died. Physical, social, and psychological measures were mixed in a variety of ways. The Germans excelled in inventing the most diabolical tortures, varying in degree of subtlety.15 Accompanying these steps were orders leading to cleavages and conflicts within the ghetto population. Among those measures was the forced transfer of Jews from surrounding communities into larger ghettos. Also forced into these confines were Gypsies and Jews who had converted to Christianity, as well as Jews transported from Austria, Germany, Holland, and Hungary. Social dissension created by their arrival inevitably led to serious economic problems. Most of these newcomers were penniless, with no prospects for gainful employment. Many were reduced to begging, and these became an ever-growing proportion of ghetto populations. Usually these unfortunates were the early victims of starvation and disease, leading to death.16 In addition, higher-class Jewish men often were singled out for especially debasing treatment. Rich factory owners and intellectuals were forced to clean toilets; rabbis became road workers. These assaults caused the entire system of social privilege to be inverted. The wealthy and the intelligentsia became the lowest strata. Another consistent Nazi practice was the periodic issuing of documents that seemed to give to only a select few the right to live. From Vilna ghetto, Mark Dworzecki tells how he and his friend appealed for these life-saving passes. “Both of us sat in the dark office corridor...waiting for the judgment upon us. We talked together but at the same time we knew that a life voucher for one of us meant a death warrant for the other.... And here the life voucher was issued to me and my friend was condemned. I was ashamed to raise my eyes but nonetheless I took the document.”17