RESCUE AND RESISTANCE

Rescue In Denmark:

-The Germans occupied Denmark on April 9, 1940. -In August 1943, the Danish government resigned to meet the demands of

the Germans. -Most individuals in occupied Europe didn't collaborate in the Nazi genocide

and did not help Jews and other victims of Nazi policies-Millions of people watched while Jews, Roma (gypsies), and other "enemies of the Reich" were taken and deported to camps.

-Very few people provided hiding places, underground escape routes, false papers, food, clothes, money, and even weapons

-Denmark was the only occupied country that resisted the Nazi regime's attempts to deport Jewish citizens. 

-A German diplomat named Georg Ferdinand Duckwitz secretly informed the Danish resistance that Nazis were planning to deport Danish Jews as well.

-Denmark made a Danish Jew rescue effort and was not completely successful. 500 Danish Jews were deported to Theresienstadt ghetto in Czechoslovakia.

Jewish Partisans:

-On July 20, 1941, the Germans order the establishment of a ghetto in Minsk where thousands of jews are killied in a few days of the establishment.

-In 1944, during the liberation of Francem the Jewish Army participated in uprisings around Paris, Lyon, and Toulouse against the Germans.

-Jews who managed to escape the ghettos and camps formed fighting units.

-The fighters were also knows as partisans. -They hid in wooded areas, one large group occupied Soviet territory in

a forest near the Lithuanian capital of Vilna. -The partisans derailed hundreds of trails to kill over 3,000 German

soldiers. -the partisans moved constantly, raided farmers' food supplies, and

had to try to survive the winter in houses made from small logs and branches

-Many Jews participated in the partisan units formed in France and Italy to help allied forced defeat German force.

The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising Between 1941 and 1943, underground resistance movements formed in

about 100 Jewish groups.  A resistance group of mostly young people formed an organization called

the Z.O.B. (for the Polish name, Zydowska Organizacja Bojowa, which means Jewish Fighting Organization)

The Z.O.B., led by 23-year-old Mordecai Anielewicz, issued a proclamation calling for the Jewish people to resist going to the railroad cars.

Fighters used a small supply of weapons that had been smuggled into the ghetto. After a few days, the troops retreated. This small victory inspired the ghetto fighters to prepare for future resistance.

Seven hundred and fifty fighters fought the heavily armed and well-trained Germans. The ghetto fighters were able to hold out for nearly a month, but on May 16, 1943, the revolt ended. The Germans had slowly crushed the resistance. Of the more than 56,000 Jews captured, about 7,000 were shot, and the remainder were deported to camps.

KEY DATES JULY 28, 1942 JEWISH FIGHTING ORGANIZATION ESTABLISHED JANUARY 18-21, 1943 GERMANS ENCOUNTER RESISTANCE MAY 16, 1943 GHETTO DESTROYED, UPRISING ENDS

Killing Center Revolts

The Warsaw ghetto uprising inspired revolts in other ghettos and in killing centers. Although many resisters knew they were bound to lose against overwhelmingly superior German forces, they chose to die fighting.

After the last Jews deported to Treblinka were gassed in May 1943, about 1,000 Jewish prisoners remained in the camp. Aware that they were soon to be killed, the prisoners decided to revolt.

The War Refugee Board

It was not until late in the war that the United States attempted to rescue Jews from the Holocaust. In January 1944, the Secretary of the Treasury, Henry Morgenthau, Jr., persuaded President Franklin D. Roosevelt to establish the War Refugee Board.

Although confirmed reports of the mass murders of Jews had reached the US State Department in 1942, officials had remained silent.

Resistance In Germany

There were many plots to assassinate Hitler during WWll

There was a specific assassination which was almost successful. A Colonel by the name “Claus von Stauffenberg” planted a bomb near Hitler at a meeting he was attending. The bomb exploded, but the table Hitler was sitting at protected him from full impact.

However, there were non violent rebels. There was a group called the “White Rose.” It was started by college kids, who handed out leaflets protesting the genocide of the Jews. The leaders were executed though.

Works Cited

Rescue in Denmark: http://www.ushmm.org/outreach/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007740

Jewish Partisans: http://www.ushmm.org/outreach/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007743

The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising: http://www.ushmm.org/outreach/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007745

Killing Center Revolts: http://www.ushmm.org/outreach/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007747

The War Refugee Board: http://www.ushmm.org/outreach/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007749

Resistance inside Germany: http://www.ushmm.org/outreach/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007751