In July 1942 Germans had begun to deport some of the approximate half a million by then resident in the Warsaw ghetto. Treblinka, just 40 miles away, was the chosen site for their destruction. In the first month 66,701 were taken and gassed on arrival. Large scale deportations continued until in January, 1943 they were suspended after the Jewish underground in Warsaw co-ordinated resistance within the ghetto itself. In April a German military unit with tanks entered the ghetto with the aim of quelling the resistance and resuming deportations. The organized Jewish groups fought back fiercely forcing the Germans to withdraw. For the next three weeks German militia retaliated by burning the houses of the ghetto, street by street. During this period most of the ghetto was destroyed and 56,000 of its inhabitants were either burned to death, shot trying to escape, or were rounded up for deportation. About 15,000 escaped into the “Aryan” parts of Warsaw. Some were later caught or betrayed but many were sheltered by sympathetic Poles and were later to fight in the Warsaw uprising in 1944.
The resistance of the Warsaw ghetto to the overwhelming power of the German military and SS commandoes is the best known example of Jews fighting back against their oppressors, but it is far from the only one. The common idea of the Jews going “like sheep to their slaughter” is belied by Gilbert’s careful documentation of the resistance of individuals, families and communities throughout the war. The rapid mobilization of the German army into Poland and then further east after the June, 1941 declaration of war against the USSR meant that Jews in the quickly occupied areas had little time to flee. Close behind the troops came the Einsatzgruppen dedicated to collecting and eliminating all Jews within the newly dominated territories. In Germany and other countries like France and Holland the laws ridding Jews of various rights continued to tighten early in the war. When deportations began, despite fears and rumours about the intentions of the SS, most could not take in the idea that total annihilation was planned. Rounded up by armed troops, often during the night, terrified families would obey instructions to bring only one suitcase for their transportation. The myth sold to them was that they were to be “resettled” further east. Thus the SS managed to control large numbers of deportees with a minimum of revolt.
As the machinery for the destruction of the Jewish population gained traction, however, the reality of the true destinations of those rounded up or transported became clearer. Despite the overwhelming force and brutality with which people were detained and moved about, as well as the near impossibility of obtaining weapons, incidents of resistance and revolt began to mount. Aware, as were the inmates of the Warsaw ghetto that their revolt against the Gestapo would only lead to ultimate defeat and death, the preference of many fighters was to die with honour, to resist with all of their strength the power of their oppressors. Throughout the Atlas, Gilbert reports on hundreds of incidents of resistance across the whole of Europe, some spontaneous, some planned, some very small in scale and others much larger.
Gilbert recounts a spontaneous revolt by the 300 Jews being brought by train in April, 1943 from villages close to Vilna, Lithuania. They had been told that they were to be resettled in an existing ghetto in Kovno but when the train stopped at another site nearby, they realized as one that they were to be murdered. Gilbert quotes from the diary of a 15 year old boy in Vilna that at that point,“Like wild animals before dying, the people began in mortal despair to break the railroad cars; they broke the little windows reinforced by strong wire. Hundreds were shot to death while running away. The railroad over a great distance is covered with corpses.” Any survivors were later shot in nearby pits by German and Lithuanian SS men. Shortly afterward another train carrying 4,000 Jews arrived. Seeing the carnage at the station they too resisted using their fists, some knives, and a few revolvers. Most were shot down on the spot. A few dozen managed to escape to Vilna.
Some who had escaped initial capture or who had eluded their guards on transports or in ghettoes were able to find their way into forest areas where partisans were attempting to survive and even to fight against the insurgent Germans. Local partisans typically were men who co-operated to resist the incursions of the German armies against their motherlands. Their focus was sabotage. Some Jews who escaped to the forests joined local or Soviet groups operating behind German lines, working with them to thwart the army or the SS wherever possible. Many Jewish partisan groups on the other hand were accepting of whoever of their people joined them – men, women, children, and the elderly. Their primary goal was to help their people survive the war. In some cases local and Jewish partisan groups would loosely co-operate but in others the locals would turn against the Jews because of anti-Semitism or because they were seen as rivals in the relentless struggle for the means of simple survival.
Despite the examples of individual and group rebellion and resistance to the Nazis that Gilbert documents, the idea that the Jews as a collective went meekly to their deaths persists. It can only be believed and accepted if they are seen as essentially different from the rest of humanity, which clearly they are not. Why has this idea had so much traction over the decades since the war? In the next post I will look at the storm that erupted when Hannah Arendt reported on the Eichmann trial for the New Yorker magazine in 1963.
No comments:
Post a Comment