Despite the dangers there were attempts made to resist the Nazis and many people paid with their lives. Over half a million Germans died resisting Hitler. Many of these people were in different groups, there was the German student resistance called the White Rose. They gave out leaflets and made poster campaigning for passive resistance against the Nazis. There was also conservative resistance; people who had become disillusioned by the Nazis, such as Ulrich von Hassell and Carl Goerdeler headed them. They wanted to negotiate with the Allies to just get the land Germany had owned before the Treaty of Versailles. Christian resistance, the Kreisau Circle, hoped to replace the Nazis. The military resistance had tried to overthrow Hitler in 1938 and was joined with others in 1941. In July 1944, Count von Stauffenberg exploded a bomb in Hitler’s military headquarters in East Prussia; Hitler safely escaped. General Beck would have stated ‘Monstrous things have taken place under our eyes in the years past.’ There was also opponents such as Dietrich Bonhoeffer, he collaborated with other groups and the Allies, but was arrested by the Gestapo in 1943. The active resistance within Germany failed, as the groups would not agree and there were only few who would follow them. They also did not stop the Holocaust, as that was not their intention, they hoped to achieve power not free the Jews.
There were many dangers of outwardly resisting the Nazis. Many people preferred passive resistance Many people opposed the Nazis by refusing to salute and telling anti- Hitler jokes; though this could be extremely dangerous, as spies or normal people may have told the Nazis and they may have been taken to concentration camps. Oskar Schindler saved over 1000 Jewish people’s lives, he did this by bribing and being friendly to Nazi officers. Schindler’s intentions had not been in the Jews best interests at first, that earlier in the war he used Jews as cheap labour in his factories. That was until he saw the suffering they were subjected to. Raoul Wallenberg who was a Swedish diplomat in Hungary helped save about 100,000 Jews, by getting Swedish certificate of protection and set up safe houses for them. However, individuals were no threat to the Nazi State. Denmark managed to help 8,000 of their Jews into Sweden were they were safe, there was only 477 Jews still in Denmark when the Germans arrived. Also countries like Italy and Finland refused to hand over their Jews, even though Mussolini had anti- Jewish laws, many Italian people helped Jews. However, these acts were too few to prevent the whole Holocaust. Also, many people did not mean to stop the Holocaust they may have just kept Jews in their homes to protect close friends. Each nation that did protect their Jews only protected their Jews. Even if they had wanted to work together they could not have if they had been on opposite sides in the war. This can also explain why the Nazis got away with genocide.
The Jews themselves were not victims and made valiant attempts to resist the Nazis. In the Chronology of Major Uprisings it shows that Jews tried as much as they possibly could to help themselves during the war. It shows that from 1942 to 1944 10,000 Jews escaped from the Minsk ghetto. It also shows that in Auschwitz in October 1944 ‘Jewish Special Squad’ workers killed several SS guards and escaped. In a map of Jewish Revolts from 1942-45) it shows that twenty of the ghettos and five of the death camps had been the stage of Jewish uprisings. Examples of this are in Treblinka in August 1943 and in the ghetto of Krushin in December 1942. A famous ghetto uprising happened in the Warsaw ghetto in Poland. This was headed by Mordecai Anielewicz he wrote that, ‘Only a few will hold out, the rest will die, sooner or later…I had the privilege of seeing the Jewish defence…in all its greatness and glory.’ ‘Lessons of the Holocaust’ says, ‘…knew they were engaged in a hopeless battle, but they were determined to give meaning to their deaths’. ‘Lessons of the Holocaust’ also tells that Jews only had, ‘…a few machine guns and rifles and a large number of grenades…’ while the Nazis had, ‘’…heavy machine guns, howitzers, artillery and armoured vehicles…’There was not possibly enough firepower to win the battle. The map Source 16 shows that Jews even formed groups, like the Jewish partisan groups. These resisted the Nazi control, attacked and harassed German forces, this happened in places like Poland and France. The Jewish resistance did not stop the Holocaust because; there were not enough instances altogether. It was almost impossible to co-ordinate the attacks under such conditions. Many Jews thought that the Nazis would not kill them because, they were their labour forces, and an example of this is in ‘Schindler’s List’, therefore they did not resist.
The Nazis needed the collaboration or apathy of others in order to succeed the extermination of the Jews. Many countries actively helped the Nazis; many Austrians were enthusiastic Anti-Semites. Hitler and many other prominent Nazis was Austrian. The Romanians also helped the Nazis; they had Anti-Semitic laws and engaged in pogroms such as in Bucharest in 1941 when 170 Jews were killed. The Vichy Government of France had deported most of the 90,000 French Jews killed in the ‘Final Solution’. However, many French people helped the French Jews. The Nazis controlled the Netherlands and Belgium and killed 105,000 Dutch Jews and 40,000 Belgian Jews. In Lithuania, the Ukraine and in Croatia many of the local population helped the Nazis. In Poland some Poles helped the Nazis capture Polish Jews. Countries like Britain and America did not want to help the Nazis with genocide, but indirectly did. If the countries had agreed a peace with Hitler, as long as the Jews were freed, then they could have prevented many deaths. However, if they had negotiated with Hitler they would have had to take the Jews into their own countries. Both countries feared anti-Semitic outbreaks if they let Jews in; therefore they did nothing to stop the killings when they knew what was happening. Therefore this is another reason why the Nazis got away with genocide.
After the war the horror of the Holocaust should have brought to an end the Anti-Semitism of the previous generations. The creation of the state of Israel brought new problems though. When the British withdrew their rule of Palestine in 1948, fighting broke out between the Arabs and the Jews who lived there. There has been so much conflict in the years since; there is hardly any prospect of peace between Arabs and Jews. In Source 19, a map of the Arab-Israeli conflict 1948-1985 shows that the Arabs attacked Israel in 1948,1967 and in 1973. The only peace treaty to be signed with Israel up to 1985 was by Egypt in 1978. Source 20, the poster of the Jew from the 1967 war is similar to Nazi propaganda. They both used stereotypical features of the Jews and use the Star of David the symbol of Judaism against the Jews. However, the war is about land not religion so therefore, this poster is about dehumanising a war enemy rather than Anti-Semitism. Recently there has been violence: like rioting however there is still not a declared war. Israel’s leaders have held talks on how to respond to a car bomb attack that killed two and harmed 50 people. Also, the Israeli and Palestinian officials have met to keep hope that the two sides can work out a truce before violence spirals out of control.
Even in Europe Anti-Semitism has not ended. In the old Soviet Union many Jews were prevented from emigrating to Israel and some old stereotypes remained. In spite of Communism, where everyone was equal the Jews were still persecuted. The evidence of the continuity of Anti-Semitism by Russians was the Anti- Jewish trials and executions between 1961 to 1963. Between these years at least 110 death sentences were given for ‘economic crimes’ out of this 110, at least 68 were Jewish. Most of these 68 were ‘without right to appeal’. The continuity is that the Jews were still being used as ‘scapegoats’ by the government for economic problems. In Source 22 the ‘Prisoners of Zion’ between 1968 to 1985 shows 200 Jews who wanted to apply and emigrate from the Soviet Union to Israel were put in prison. These were called the ‘Prisoners of Zion’, after world protest over half of the 200 were allowed to leave for Israel. Then later all Jewish prisoners were released. However, the prisoners were not just Jewish. There were 100,000 prisoners and they were political and other religious prisoners. So this persecution was not just about the Jews but also of people who opposed the Soviet Union, this was not the government who performed these acts, but local courts. There has been change in Russia after the collapse of Communism. In the map ‘The Jews of the Former Soviet Union, 1989-1993’ It shows that after emigration was allowed in 1989 to 1992, 21% of the Jewish population had left for Israel, 7% for America and 4% for Germany. In 1992 Hebrew teaching and Hebrew newspapers and libraries grew. By the end of 1992 there was 53 Jewish newspapers being published. However, Anti-Semitism today still exists.
Recently Neo-Nazism has emerged in Western Europe, including Britain, France and Germany. The difference is this time is the majority of people are shocked and horrified at the prejudice. Examples of this are shown in Source 23, a map of Anti- Semitic Incidents in Europe 1992. In Germany on 4th November 1992 Jewish graves were vandalised, however then on the 14th 150,000 people led in protest against Anti-Semitism. The same thing happened in Italy. In Britain in 1990, after Jewish cemeteries were vandalised and not reported many people were worried. Jo Wagerman head teacher of a Jewish school said, ‘We will never be able to say it’s all right, it can’t happen again. There will be watchfulness always.’ However, the Manchester Jewish Council said, ‘If the French cemetery attack had not been given such …media coverage, there would not have been copy cat daubing on cemeteries here.’ Reported in a teenage magazine these statistics are also worrying, in Britain 140,000 racially motivated crimes were reported to the police in 1996. By 1998 fewer than 1 in 100 of these had been prosecuted. In Germany between the years of 1990 and 1993, there were 75 reported deaths and 23,000 crimes related to fascist violence. However, the 9th of November of this year, the anniversary of Kristallnacht were thousands of Jews were attacked by the SS, a huge demo in Germany took place. The protest was against the recent outbreak of attacks against foreigners including Jews.
Anti-Semitism as not gone away, the problem is still there. The fact there are still outbreaks of violence against Jews shows this, however there is progress in that most people find it horrific the actions of others against Jews. There is also progress as incidents of Anti-Semitism are reported in newspapers and articles in magazines. It has improved since 1945, but there is still a lot of progress needed.