Nov 20th Blog Questions

5. Q: How did Jews resist the Nazi genocide?

   A: Three ways that the Jews resisted Nazi genocide were emigration, spiritual resistance, and armed struggles. An example of emigration was the Kindertransport. The Kindertransport was when England received approximately 10,000 Jewish children living in the Reich. In Poland, Emanual Ringelblum organized the documentation of ghetto life with the help of an array of rabbis, social scientists, writers, historians, and journalists. This was known by the code name of Oyneg Shabbes which translates to "Sabbath Delight." Despite Jewish education being deemed illegal, from 1940-1942, an illegal Jewish high school in the Warsaw ghetto taught vocational courses as well as technical drawing and pharmacology classes. Bundist and Zionist youth persisted in printing out newspapers as well as offering intellectual and spiritual comfort to those living in the ghettos. On April 19, 1943, the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising occurred. Jewish resistance fighters waited for the germans to enter the ghetto in order to liquidate it with Molotov cocktails and pistols. The battle went on for there weeks until commander Mordechai Anielewicz was killed, arrests were made, and Jewish hideouts were discovered.  

6. Q:Should the US or Britain have bombed the death camps?
 
   A: I believe the shouldn't have, but rather bomb the train lines leading to Auschowitz-Birkenau. Despite that idea being dismissed as "logistically unfeasible" (JAH 403), this would have prevented further Jews from entering the concentration camps as well as cutting off travel. From this, air support could've arrived at the camps and use the German's lack of transportation to overtake the camp and save those incarcerated.