Jewish Resistance Efforts During the Holocaust

The Jews in Europe were against insurmountable odds to fight back against Hitler and the Nazi Party. Jews in Europe had no weaponry and they were fiercely intimidated by the SS Nazi officers. The populations around them were highly anti-semitic and turned against their Jewish neighbors.

In the Summer of 1942, an uprising occurred by the Jews in Warsaw. The leader of the revolt was a man named Mordecai Anielewicz who gathered up several hundred young Jewish men and women and began digging bunkers to get ready for the battle with the Nazi soldiers. They pooled money together to buy amunitions from other Polish people. On April 13, when the Nazis came to get the Jews for deportation to the death camps, they were greeted by gunfire from the resistance movement. The Jewish people fought bravely even after the Germans came in with heavy artillery, flamethrowers and grenades. Three and a half weeks later, the Nazis had crushed the revolt and killed everyone. No more than 150 Nazi soldiers had been killed by the Jewish uprising. A total of 40,000 Jews died. 7,000 Jews were killed in the battle and 20,000 others were rounded up and killed in the concentration camps.

Small uprisings occurred in other ghettos. The second biggest uprising occurred in Sobibor in 1943. Alexander Pecherski who had been an officer in the Soviet army, carefulyl organized a revolt against the Nazis. The revolt was about 600 people. The 600 people attempted to over power the guards who were guarding the ghetto. The group was successful but the Nazis shot most of them. However, 62 people managed to escape and survive.

David Ben Gurion tried to appeal to the British for help with the Jews but the British refused. Finally, Winston Churchill's son was able to convince him to have parachutists land into hostile territory to help the Jews. Out of the 32 parachutists, all but one were killed. However, that one woman was able to lead an underground camp to train people to fight the resistance. Alas, she too was shot and killed by the Germans.

The final method that was tried was buying off the Nazis. Jews tried to bribe officials and prevent them from sending the Germans the transports of Jewish people to the concentration camps. However, in many cases the bribes were useless. There were a small select few amount of Jews slightly less than 2,000 who were bought for and brought into Switzerland.