Jewish Resistance in Ghettos and Camps
(1941 - 1944)
Between 1941 and 1943, underground resistance
movements developed in about 100 Jewish ghettos in Nazi-occupied eastern Europe. Their main goals were to organize
uprisings, break out of the ghettos and join partisan units in the fight against the Germans. The Jews knew that uprisings
would not stop the Germans and that only a handful of fighters would
succeed in escaping to join with partisans. Still, Jews made the
decision to resist. Further, Jewish
prisoners succeeded in initiating resistance and uprisings in some Nazi concentration camps, and even
in the killing centers of Treblinka, Sobibor, and Auschwitz.
Other camp uprisings took place in camps such as Kruszyna (1942), Minsk
Mazowiecki (1943), and Janowska (1943). In several dozen camps
prisoners organized escapes to join partisan units.
Sources: U.S. Holocaust
Memorial Museum
|