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to the killing centers, that their resistance could not save the remaining Jews who could not fight, and that they were
vastly outnumbered by the Germans. They fought, however, for the sake of Jewish honor and to avenge the
slaughter of so many people. Similarly, Jewish prisoners rose against their
guards at three killing centers: Treblinka, Auschwitz, and Sobibor. Thousands
of young Jews resisted the Germans by escaping from the ghettos into the
forests, where they joined Soviet units or formed separate units to harass the
German occupiers.
In many countries, Jewish resistance often took the form of aid and rescue.
Jewish authorities in Palestine sent secret parachutists into Hungary and
Slovakia in 1944 to give whatever help they could to Jews in hiding. In
France, various elements of the Jewish underground combined to form
different resistance groups. Many Jews fought as members of national
resistance movements in Belgium, France, Italy, Poland, Yugoslavia, Greece,
and Slovakia.
Jews in the ghettos and camps also responded to Nazi oppression with various
forms of spiritual resistance. They attempted to preserve the history of the
Jewish people despite Nazi efforts to eradicate them from human memory.
These efforts included creating cultural institutions, continuing to observe
religious holidays and rituals, providing underground education, publishing
secretive newspapers, and collecting and hiding documentation.
Kindertransport
Kindertransport
, which translates to Children's Transport, was a series of rescue efforts which brought thousands of
Jewish children to Great Britain from Nazi occupied countries between 1938 and 1940. Following
Kristallnacht
,
the British government eased immigration laws for certain categories of Jewish refugees. Spurred by the voices of
the British public and the persistent efforts of refuge aid committees, British authorities agreed to permit an
undetermined number of children under the age of 17 to enter from Nazi occupied countries – Germany,
Czechoslovakia, and Austria. Citizens or organizations had to guarantee to pay for each child's care, education, and
eventual emigration from Britain. In return, the British government agreed to allow refugee children to enter the
country on temporary travel visas. Parents or guardians could not accompany the children.
The first
Kindertransport
arrived in Harwich, Great Britain, on December 2, 1938, bringing around 200 children
from a Jewish orphanage in Berlin which had been destroyed in
Kristallnacht
. Children from smaller towns and
villages traveled to collection points in order to join the transports. Jewish organizations inside the Greater German
Reich planned the transports and generally favored children whose parents were in concentration camps or were no
longer able to support them as well as homeless children and orphans. The last transport from Germany left just as
World War II began.
In all, the rescue operation brought about 9,000-10,000 children from Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia, and
Poland to Great Britain. After the transports arrived, children with sponsors went to London to meet their foster
families. Children without sponsors were housed in a summer camp until individual families agreed to care for
them or shelters could be organized to care for larger groups of children.
Despite their classification as enemy aliens, some boys from the transport program later joined the British army and
fought against Germany. After the war, many children from the transport program became citizens of Great Britain
or immigrated to other countries including Israel, the United States, Canada, and Australia. Most of these children
never saw their parents again, as most of them were murdered during the Holocaust.
Jewish partisan Sara Ginaite in Lithuania
Jewish Partisan Educational Foundation
