Jewish Resistance During the Holocaust

About This Lesson

In the previous lesson, students learned about the enormity of the crimes committed during the Nazi regime and were introduced to the ways in which Jews resisted the Nazis’ program of dehumanization and murder. This lesson invites a deeper exploration of Jewish resistance, both spiritual and physical, during the Holocaust. Students will learn about the different ways that the Jews resisted the Nazis, both within and outside of the camps, in an effort to preserve their lives, dignity, and culture, which the Nazis attempted to destroy. Students will start by defining the term resistance, and then they will review the different forms of resistance during the Holocaust: physical and spiritual. Students will explore this difference in the second activity using texts from the Oyneg Shabbos Archive that sought to preserve Jewish articles of faith, knowing that the Nazis were bent on destroying all remnants of Jewish culture along with the Jewish people. After analyzing and discussing five readings that explore resistance during the Holocaust, students will learn about Abba Kovner and the Vilna Ghetto Manifesto. They will analyze and respond to the famous words of the manifesto: “Let us not go as sheep to the slaughter.”

Essential Question

What does learning about the choices people made to either resist or rescue during the rise of the Nazi Party and the Holocaust teach us about the power and impact of our choices today?

Alternate Jewish Ed Unit Essential Question:

How is our Jewish identity tied in with the history of the Holocaust?

Guiding Questions

• What are the different ways that Jews resisted the Nazis during the Holocaust?
• If death was imminent for many Jews, why did they choose to resist the Nazis? Did their acts of resistance matter?
• How can resistance be spiritual and not just physical?

Learning Objectives

• Students will create working definitions for and discuss the concept of resistance, both physical and spiritual, during the Holocaust.
• Students will analyze and discuss readings and Abba Kovner’s manifesto to consider the factors that influenced Jewish resistance.

Lesson Plan

Activity 1: Review Resistance

Start by having pairs of students discuss the following questions for a quick review of what they learned in the last lesson about resistance during the Holocaust:

• What did it mean to resist the Nazis? What kinds of resistance were those targeted by the Nazis able to carry out?
• What is the difference between physical and spiritual resistance?

Ask for a few students to share their ideas with the class.

Activity 2: Analyze Types of Resistance during the Holocaust

Use a modified application of the Jigsaw strategy to have students analyze and discuss a set of readings that explore physical and spiritual resistance during the Holocaust. Divide the class into groups of five. Give every group the following five readings, and explain that each student in the group is responsible for one of the readings.

• Reading: Vitka Kempner’s Biography and Image: Vitka Kempner and Fellow Jewish Partisans
• Reading: Voices from the Warsaw Ghetto (Oyneg Shabbos)
• Reading: Bielski Brothers' Biography
• Reading: A Statement of Faith
• Reading: The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising

Explain that each student will read their assigned reading and prepare answers to the following questions that they will share with the other members of their group:

• Who is the reading primarily about?
• What was the context of the resistance in the reading?
• Was the resistance in the reading spiritual or physical?
• What was the danger involved?
• What did the individual or group resisting hope to gain?

Instruct students to go around in a circle and have each member of the group summarize their reading, using the questions they answered as a guide.

Finally, in their journals or a class discussion, have students reflect on which stories most resonated with them and why.

Activity 3: Discuss Abba Kovner’s Famous Words

Provide the class with a brief background on Abba Kovner. Tell them he organized the Vilna Ghetto uprising, survived the war, and eventually made Aliyah to Israel with his wife, Vitka Kempner, a fellow partisan fighter. Today, he is considered to have been one of the greatest poets of modern Israel; he received the Israel Prize in 1970, and there are numerous streets named after him in Israel.

Read aloud “The Ghetto Manifesto” from The Vilna Ghetto Manifesto and ask students to discuss the following questions in pairs. They should record their responses in their journals or notebooks.

• What does Abba Kovner mean by “sheep to the slaughter”?
• Why do you think this phrase resonated within the Jewish community?
• Why do some people find this phrase to be problematic today?

Activity 4: Reflect on Resistance during the Holocaust

Have students reflect on the following questions in their journals.

• If death was imminent for many Jews, why did they choose to resist the Nazis?
• Did their acts of resistance matter?

Time allowing, ask students to share one idea in an activity based on the Wraparound strategy.