The Holocaust

The Holocaust is the name applied to the systematic state-sponsored persecution and genocide of various ethnic, religious and political groups during World War II by Nazi Germany and its collaborators. Early elements of the Holocaust include the Kristallnacht pogrom and the T-4 Euthanasia Program, progressing to the later use of killing squads and extermination camps in a massive and centrally-organized effort to murder every possible member of the populations targeted by the Nazis.

Resistance and Rescuers

Resistance

Due to the careful organization and overwhelming military might of the Nazi German state and its supporters, few Jews and other Holocaust victims were able to resist the killings. There are, however, many cases of attempts at resistance in one form or another.

Related Topics:
Nazi - Jew

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The largest instance of organized Jewish resistance was the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, from April to May of 1943, as the final deportation from the Ghetto to the death camps was about to commence. The ZOB and smaller organizations held out against the Nazis for 27 days, before all were killed. There were also other Ghetto Uprisings, though none were successful against the German military.

Related Topics:
Warsaw Ghetto Uprising - ZOB - Ghetto Uprising

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There was also major resistance efforts in three of the extermination camps. In August 1943 an uprising also took place at the Treblinka extermination camp. Many buildings were burnt to the ground, and seventy inmates escaped to freedom, but 1,500 were killed. Gassing operations were interrupted for a month. In October 1943 another uprising took place at Sobibór extermination camp. This uprising was more successful; 11 SS guards were killed, and roughly 300 of the 600 inmates in the camp escaped, with about 50 surviving the war. The escape forced the Nazis to close the camp. On October 7, 1944, the Jewish Sonderkommandos (those prisoners kept separate from the main camp and involved in the operation of the gas chambers and crematoria) at Auschwitz staged an uprising. Female prisoners had smuggled in explosives from a weapons factory, and Crematorium IV was partly destroyed by an explosion. The prisoners then attempted a mass escape, but all 250 were killed soon after.

Related Topics:
1943 - Treblinka extermination camp - Sobibór extermination camp - October 7 - 1944 - Sonderkommando

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There were also a number of Jewish partisan groups operating in many countries, and Jewish volunteers from the Palestinian Mandate, most famously Hannah Szenes, parachuted into Europe in an attempt to organize resistance.

Related Topics:
Palestinian Mandate - Hannah Szenes

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Rescuers

:See also: List of people who helped Jews during the Holocaust

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In two cases, entire countries resisted the deportation of their Jewish population. The King of Denmark and his subjects saved the lives of most of the 7,500 Danish Jews by spiriting them to safety in Sweden via fishing boats in October 1943. When the Jews returned home at war's end, they found their houses and possessions waiting for them, exactly as they left them. In the second case, the Nazi-allied government of Bulgaria, led by Dobri Bozhilov, refused to deport its 50,000 Jewish citizens, saving them as well, though Bulgaria did deport Jews to concentration camps from areas in conquered Greece and Macedonia.

Related Topics:
Denmark - 7,500 Danish Jews - Bulgaria - Dobri Bozhilov - Greece - Macedonia

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Some towns and churches also helped hide Jews and protect others from the Holocaust, such as the French town of Le Chambon-sur-Lignon which sheltered several thousand Jews. Similar individual and family acts of rescue were repeated throughout Europe, as illustrated in the famous cases of Anne Frank, often at great risk to the rescuers. In a few cases, individual diplomats and people of influence, such as Oskar Schindler, protected large numbers of Jews. Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg, Italian Giorgio Perlasca, and others saved tens of thousands of Jews with fake diplomatic passes.

Related Topics:
Le Chambon-sur-Lignon - Anne Frank - Oskar Schindler - Raoul Wallenberg - Giorgio Perlasca

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There were also groups, like members of the Polish Zegota organization, that took drastic and dangerous steps to rescue Jews and other potential victims from the Nazis. Witold Pilecki, member of Armia Krajowa (the Polish Home Army), organized a resistance movement in the Auschwitz concentration camp from 1940, and Jan Karski tried to spread word of the Holocaust.

Related Topics:
Zegota - Witold Pilecki - Armia Krajowa - Auschwitz concentration camp - Jan Karski

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Since 1963, a commission headed by an Israeli Supreme Court justice has been charged with the duty of awarding such people the honorary title Righteous Among the Nations.

Related Topics:
1963 - Righteous Among the Nations

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