|
Evolving with the Times
Jewish Resistance in Historical
Writing
by Dr. Robert Rozett
Soon
after WWII, two views about the fundamental nature of Jewish
resistance emerged. The first glorified armed resistance, pegging it
as the only legitimate response to Nazi persecution. The second
regarded armed resistance more critically,
focusing on
additional forms of Jewish response.
As Roni Stauber
demonstrates in his groundbreaking book Lekach Ledor (Hebrew),
for many early Holocaust writers, Jewish heroism was bound to the
notion of Jewish resistance. Those who participated in armed
resistance against the Nazis were likened to the new tough breed of
Zionist Jews, and their heroism was attributed to a shedding of their
“passive” Diaspora-like behavior. This in turn frequently led to the
glorification of Jewish armed resistance. Such veneration is evident
in a speech by Arieh Tartakower at Yad Vashem’s first international
scholarly conference on Jewish resistance (1968): “Among the numerous
facets which merit our attention there is one which has such
overpowering significance that it casts all others in the shade... I
refer to the Jewish resistance to the Nazi oppressor and his
collaborators, which reached its supreme expression in the ghetto
revolts and the warfare of the partisans, though it flourished in many
other forms as well… At the very height of the Hitler period the
principal victim rose up against it armed only with his bare hands… and
accomplished what no other nation under similar circumstances ever
did.”
If Jewish
resistance was glorified, the six million Holocaust victims were often
anything but. Those who did not resist with arms (or at least flee the
Nazi onslaught) were often portrayed in the literature as having gone
to their deaths “like sheep to the slaughter.” Around the time of the
Adolf Eichmann trial in Jerusalem (1961), three books surfaced that
openly attacked Jews for their “shameful” behavior during the
Holocaust: Raul Hilberg’s seminal volume, The Destruction of the
European Jews, Bruno Bettelheim’s The Informed Heart, and
Hannah Arendt’s report on the Eichmann Trial, Eichmann in Jerusalem.
In the 1950s, a
new genre—anthologies of resistance—emerged in Hebrew, developed in
English during the 1960s, and continued to be published well into the
1980s. These anthologies—produced in many instances in direct response
to Hilberg, Bettelheim, and Arendt—extensively illustrated how Jews
engaged in armed resistance and were neither passive victims nor
collaborators. In most instances, they extolled armed resistance as
the highest form of Jewish response to Nazi persecution.
While many sought to glorify armed
resistance, a few early writers maintained that it was only one of
many legitimate Jewish responses. Well-known figures such as Berl
Katzenelson, Benzion Dinur, Nathan Eck, Zorach Warhaftig, and Mark
Dworzecki focused on “spiritual resistance” and the Jews’ daily
struggle to survive the Holocaust. This more encompassing treatment of
resistance (which includes armed resistance), engendered the Hebrew
term Amidah, explained by Dworzecki as “a comprehensive name
for all expressions of Jewish ‘non-conformism’ and for all the forms
of resistance and all acts by Jews aimed at thwarting the evil design
of the
Nazis.”
In the 1970s
and 1980s, Jewish armed resistance began to be represented in a more
academic manner. Many scholars, like Professor Dov Levin and Dr.
Shmuel Krakowski, avoided glorification and instead examined the
phenomena on a local or regional level. This trend extended into the
1990s, with researchers examining specific instances of Jewish armed
resistance within the greater contexts of regions, ghettos, and
camps. By refraining from belittling other forms of resistance, these
publications generally sought to present a balanced and less
judgmental view.
Sarah Bender’s study on Bialystok is a
prime example. She portrays the interaction between the ghetto
underground and the official ghetto leadership, and how their
interpretations of resistance led to different survival strategies.
While both agreed armed resistance should begin only when the
liquidation of the ghetto was imminent, when
the end approached, Ephraim Barasz, Jewish Council leader, could not
engage in armed resistance along with the underground. Neither
berating him, nor judging him, Bender explains: “It is plausible that
when he realized he had failed [in his rescue approach], he could not
bring himself to believe in armed struggle or in any good that could
come of it.”
By the late
1970s, large-scale rescue as a form of resistance became another
subject for scholarly research. Asher Cohen and I wrote about mass
rescue in Hungary and Slovakia in the 1980s. Lucien Lazare followed in
the 1990s, with a book about Jewish rescue activities in France
entitled Rescue as Resistance. Such studies make two central
points: large-scale rescue activity by Jews was a form of resistance
(Amidah) and such resistance required outside help to succeed,
and thus cannot be studied solely from the perspective of Jewish
activity.
In the 1990s,
research shifted largely from investigations by subject matter towards
examinations of the totality of the Jewish experience in a given place
during the Holocaust. Although not directed at Jewish resistance
alone, monographs such as Renee Poznanski’s Etre juif en France
pendant la Seconde Guerre mondiale, and Marion Kaplan’s Between
Dignity and Despair: Jewish Life in Nazi Germany present aspects
of Amidah as integral to the daily Jewish experience.
In the 1990s
this inclusive approach was reinforced by Michael Marrus, who
presented an invaluable paper at the Yad Vashem 1993 conference,
“Major Changes Within the Jewish People in the Wake of the Holocaust.”
Employing a system for classifying resistance first presented by Swiss
historian Walter Rings, Marrus elucidated the different types of
Jewish resistance, without judging them or creating a hierarchy of
merit: “Symbolic Resistance, or I remain what I was; Polemic
Resistance, or I tell the truth; Defensive Resistance, or I aid and
protect; Offensive Resistance, or I fight to the death; (and)
Resistance Enchained, or freedom fighters in camp and ghetto.”
Over the years,
historical understanding of Jewish resistance during the Holocaust has
undergone many adaptations. Acts of physical resistance can be valued
without glorification. Jews who were murdered can be mourned free of
blame for being passive. And Jewish resistance can be an inclusive
term denoting all of the diverse forms of Jewish non-conformity and
rescue. Each instance, in its own context, deserves thoughtful
examination under the light of historical scrutiny.
The author
is Director of the Library
Copyright ©2004 Yad Vashem The Holocaust
Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Authority
|
