Faces of

Resistance

Arianna Bornhof, Sergio Vargas, Rashi Kacker, Anna-Marie Hosking 1

 What is Resistance?
• The meaning of Resistance is the acton of
opposing something that you disapprove or
disagree with.
• In World War II, the act of resistance can be
subjected to many meanings ranging from non-
violent acts such as protestng, violent uprisings
found in and out of the concentraton camps,
hiding Jews, espionage, politcal slander, forgery
of documents, ataining weaponry, assistng in
escape, and strategically disruptng Nazi
actvites.

2
 J e w is h R e s is ta n c e :
P a rtis a n U n its in th e
F o re s ts
 •The heavily forested areas of Lithuania provided
refuge for some Jews.

•Those who could reach the forests established family

camps or became partsans.

•In Lithuania, this actvity took place in the Rudniki

Forest and Naroch Forest.
•The Jewish partsans focused on doing whatever
they could to slow down the German war
machine. They began to cut down the
communicaton lines.

•The most dangerous missions for the Jewish

partsans were missions for the purpose of
obtaining food and needed weapons from the
local farmers.
•In the forest, the escapees of the Vilna gheto became
fghtng partsans.

•There were four Jewish partsan detachments in the

Rudnicki forest:

"The Avenger’s”

"For Victory"

"Death of Fascism”

"Struggle”
 •An estmated 20,000 to 30,000 Jews
fought in partsan groups based in the
forests of eastern Europe.

•There were about 30 Jewish partsan

detachments and some 21 additonal
non-Jewish partsan groups in which Jews
fought.
 •In 1944 more than 150 Jewish partsans were
fghtng in the Parczew forest north of the
Polish city of Lublin; of these only 40 survived
untl liberaton.

•They partcipated in the takeover of the city of

Parczew on April 16, 1944.
 •While most Soviet and Polish partsan
groups consisted of single, able-bodied men
armed for combat, some Jewish fghters
established another kind of partsan unit:

• the family camp, where women, children,

and elderly people lived with and were
protected by the fghters.
Treblinka Uprising
1942-1943
 Treblinka Uprising
1942-1943

• It was the largest

exterminaton camp afer
Auschwitz.
• Treblinka was designed to
look like a train staton.
• Treblinka I (forced labor
camp) ran from 1941 to
1944 while Treblinka II
(exterminaton camp) ran
for about 13 months from
1942 to 1943.
Treblinka Uprising
1942-1943

• A revolt within Treblinka

began strring toward the
completon of the camp.
• The revolt was led by Dr.
Julian Chorazyski, a
former captain in the
Polish Army.
• Plan of Revolts, both
included setng fre to
the camp.
– Plan #1: Self Sacrifce
– Plan #2: Weaponry
 Warsaw Gheto Uprising
April 19, 1943-May 16, 1943

• January, 1943: Successful

Minor Revolt

• April 19, 1943: Strategically

planned atack against the Mordecai Anielewicz, leader of ZOB Polish Fighter aims at SS Ofcers

Nazi’s Resistance in the Warsaw Ghetto

• 27 Days Later…May 16,

1943

• Served as a symbol for Jewish Gentleman Resisting

future resistance in gheto’s against SS Officers

throughout Europe

Alleged Jewish Women

Fighters
Many Jews refused to be bystanders and allow the atrocities
of the Holocaust to occur, they were determined to take
action against their perpetrators. Resistance groups were
found in nearly all major Jewish Ghettos during World War II,
together they plotted ways in which they could disrupt Nazi
activities and schedules.

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Images of the fnal days of the
Warsaw Gheto Uprising.

15
 The Revolt of the
Sonderkommando in Birkenau
October 7, 1944

October 7th, 1944

A group of prisoners who were forced to:
•bring arrivals into the gas chambers
•remove their bodies aferwards
•shave their hair
•remove their teeth
•sort through their possessions
•cremate their bodies
•dispose of their ashes (many tmes bodies of their
own Family memebers)
 Plotng for the revoluton of the
12th Sonderkommando
• Gunpowder smuggled from Ella Gartner
Roza Robota, Regina Safr and Ester
Wajsblum made into makeshif grenades
using sardine tns
• Small arms that were slipped through
the barbed-wire fence by local partsans
• Knives and small axes made and hidden by prisoners
around the camp
 Sonderkommando Take Acton
• Sonderkommando 12 learns that their executon will take
place in the next few days…
• Revolt begins around 3pm on the 7th of October
• Poles in Crematorium 1 begin the revolt. Hungarians in
Crematoria 3 and 4 join in while the sonderkommando of
Crematorium 2 break through the barb-wires of the camp
and open an escape to the woods
• The shots, the explosions, and
• the blaring sirens beckon more
• than 3000 SS troops
 Thank You Anna for sharing your
story with us; it will forever be told
for centuries to come.
-Sergio, Rashi, Anna, and Ari

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 ibliography
ckerfeld, Lance. "The Revolt of the Sonderkommando in Birkenau." JewishGen, Inc., 20 Nov. 2001. Web.
<http://www.jewishgen.org/yizkor/oswiecim1/osw475.html >.

aranova, Galina. "Svintsyan Partisans." Svencionys. Ed. Marjorie S. Rosenfeld. JewishGen-erosity, 2000.
Web. 26 Feb. 2010. <http://www.shtetlinks.jewishgen.org/ Svencionys/ partisan_movement.html>.

ard, Mitchell. “Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.” Jewish Viritual Library. 2010.

<http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/uprising1.html>.

art, Michael. "Jewish Partisan Resistance & Sabotage." UNTIL OUR LAST BREATH. St. Martin's Press, 2008.
Web. 26 Feb. 2010. <http://www.untilourlastbreath.com/Bart4 sabatogefacts.html>.

The Holocaust.” Holocaust Encyclopedia United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. 8 Sept. 1997
<http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/?ModuleId=10005143>.

ajzman, Samuel. "Uprising In Treblinka". House Committee of Foreign Affairs. 1 Mar. 2010
<http://www.holocaust-history.org/operation-reinhard/uprising-in-treblinka.shtml>.

Resistance During the Holocaust." The Holocaust/Genocide Project: AN END TOINTOLERANCE. iEARN,
2005. Web. 26 Feb. 2010. <http://iearn.org/hgp/aeti/aeti-1998-no- frames/resistance.htm>.

20
The Revolt at Auschwitz-Birkenau." Jewish Virtual Library - Homepage. Web. 07 Mar. 2010.