The Changing Face of
Jewish Resistance
An Adaptive Educational Approach
by Doron Avraham
Our Living Legacy: A
New Publication
Yesterdays and then
Tomorrows: A Holocaust Anthology
Recent
Highlights at the International School for Holocaust Studies
During
the Holocaust, Jews in the ghettos, prisoners in the concentration and
extermination camps, and partisans in the forests continuously
wrestled with the question of how to resist Nazi oppression and
destruction. Since the end of the war, the
topic of Jewish
resistance has evolved into a defining component of Holocaust
remembrance in Israeli society and institutions.
Following
Israeli statehood, Holocaust remembrance was rooted in the common
ideologies of the time, as reflected by the ideal of the fierce Sabra
warrior. While Holocaust victims were given a special place within
Jewish collective memory, the main emphasis was placed on
commemorating Jewish fighters. Armed resistance against the Nazis was
linked to the new national ethos: power and pride over passivity and surrender.
During Israel’s
early decades, the Holocaust did not feature in the national
curriculum and only on rare occasions did Holocaust survivors give
their testimonies at Israeli schools. Holocaust memorials and
institutions were based on Jewish fighters and Jewish armed struggle:
Beit Lochamei Hageta’ot (the Ghetto Fighters’ House), Yad Mordecai
Museum (named after Mordecai Anielewicz), the Massuah memorial to
members of the Zionist youth movements, Nathan Rappaport’s sculpture
of the Warsaw ghetto uprising, etc.
As awareness of
the survivors’ personal experiences increased, the concept of Jewish
resistance became more inclusive. Alongside Jews bearing arms were
those who worked to preserve human dignity, promote mutual aid, basic
educational infrastructures, and religious and cultural life during
the Holocaust.
These changes were also evident in how the
subject of Jewish resistance was approached
in Israeli schools. Although educators continued to teach about
Jewish armed struggle, they also focused on
other expressions of resistance, e.g. Jewish public aid institutions
and the preservation of the Jewish family. These and similar topics
were mandated in the formal and informal education systems’ curriculum
in the early 1980s.
Since its
establishment in 1994, the International School for Holocaust Studies
at Yad Vashem has employed this comprehensive educational approach to
Jewish resistance during the Holocaust. Several teacher training
seminars and courses encompass this philosophy including “The Jewish
Stance During the Holocaust,” “The Uprising,” and “Resistance and
Rebellion.” Workshops and symposia are held for soldiers, pupils, and
university students on topics such as “Physical Resistance, Spiritual
Resistance,” and a special tour of the site is available focusing on
Jewish resistance monuments.
The
International School has published a wide range of curricula and
educational study units focusing—in part or fully—on the wide spectrum
of Jewish resistance. Among these are: The Many Faces of Heroism
(Hebrew), And the Walls Surrounded Us (Hebrew), and
Holocaust and Memory (Hebrew).
Currently, the
International School is preparing a curriculum for grade 7-12 students
entitled, Until the Last Breath, which highlights armed
resistance and spiritual resistance. Created in honor of 60 years
since the Warsaw ghetto uprising, the unit presents the various
responses of Jews who faced oppression and the constant threat of
death. Photographs from the ghettos, forests, and family camps, as
well as works of art, have been included to illustrate the different
expressions of Jewish resistance. The unit will be published in summer
2003 and was made possible through the generosity of the National Yad
Vashem Charitable Trust in England and the late Gerda Buchalter.
In approaching
the complex and multi-faceted subject of the Shoah, Israeli
society at large, and Yad Vashem more specifically, continue to
challenge and expand the definition of Jewish resistance during the
Holocaust.
The author
is a staff member in the Programs and Curricula Development
Department, International School for Holocaust Studies.
Copyright ©2004 Yad Vashem The Holocaust
Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Authority |
