Abstract
‘The point of departure in any discussion of Jewish resistance during the Holocaust must be the basic fact that the Jewish People did not succeed in defending these lives [of the six million who died]’ — thus historian Leni Yahil presented her view of the Jewish scene at the opening of her lecture at Yad Vashem’s first international scholars’ conference, held in 1968.1 Yahil was one of the first academic Holocaust researchers in Israel, and was already well known at the time because of her path-breaking study on the rescue of Danish Jewry.2 She would establish her reputation later in a comprehensive history of the Holocaust.3 Her view expressed the feeling of many Jews and non-Jews alike, at that time as well as later. Even if this approach can be justified to a certain extent, it is nevertheless based on a somewhat problematic assumption concerning the cohesion and mode of organization of ‘The Jewish People’, an assumption that will be discussed later. But, if ‘the Jewish People did not succeed in defending the lives of its members’, a necessary question regarding the Jewish leadership had to follow: how did this leadership behave vis-à-vis and react to the Nazi threat, and — most emphatically — in what did it fail?
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Notes
L. Yahil, ‘Jewish Resistance — an Examination of Active and Passive Forms of Jewish Survival in the Holocaust Period’, in Jewish Resistance during the Holocaust: Proceedings of the Conference on Manifestations of Jewish Resistance, Jerusalem, 7–11 April 1968 (Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 1971), p. 36.
L. Yahil, Hatzalat Hayehudim Bedenya: Demokratiya She-ameda Bemivhan (Jerusalem: Magness, 1967); English translation: The Rescue of Danish Jewry: Test of Democracy (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1969).
L. Yahil, The Holocaust: The Fate of European Jewry, 1932–1945 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991).
See, for instance, N.K.C.A. in ‘t Veld, De Joodse Ereraad (‘s Gravenhage: SDU, 1989).
R. Hilberg, The Destruction of the European Jews (Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1961), pp. 662–6; see also his recently published Perpetrators, Victims, Bystanders (New York: HarperCollins, 1992), pp. 105–17.
H. Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil (New York: Viking, 1963), p. 125.
R. Hilberg, ‘The Judenrat: Conscious or Unconscious “Tool”’, in Patterns of Jewish Leadership in Nazi Europe, 1933–1945: Proceedings of the Third Yad Vashem International Historical Conference, April 1977, ed. Y. Gutman and C.J. Haft (Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 1979), see especially p. 32.
Quoted from the translated versions of these articles, included in P. Friedman, Roads toExtinction.Essays on the Holocaust (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1980), pp. 353, 333–4.
B. Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (London: Verso, 1983); A.D. Smith, The Nation in History (Hanover: University Press of New England, 2000), pp. 53–60.
H.H. Ben-Sasson, ed., A History of the Jewish People (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1976), p. 709.
For more about these aspects, see D. Michman, Holocaust Historiography: A Jewish Perspective (London: Vallentine Mitchell, 2003), pp. 61–6, 252–3.
I. Trunk, Judenrat: The Jewish Councils in Eastern Europe under Nazi Occupation (New York: Macmillan, 1972).
Y. Gutman, ed., Patterns of Jewish Leadership during the Holocaust (Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 1980).
For an overview of the historiographical polemics, see A. Weiss, ‘The Historiographical Controversy Concerning the Character and Functions of the Judenrats’, in The Historiography of the Holocaust Period: Proceedings of the Fifth Yad Vashem International Historical Conference, March 1983, ed. Y. Gutman and G. Greif (Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 1988), pp. 679–96.
C.E. Gibb, leadership’, in The Handbook of Social Psychology, ed. G. Lindzey and E. Aronson, vol. 4, 2nd edition (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1969), pp. 212–13.
K.A. Schleunes, The Twisted Road to Auschwitz: Nazi Policy toward German Jews, 1933–1939 (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1970).
For this interpretation of the evolution of Nazi policies see I. Kershaw, Hitler. 1889–1936: Hubris (New York: W.W. Norton, 1998), pp. 527–91.
Y. Arad, Y. Gutman and A. Margaliot, eds., Documents on the Holocaust (Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 1981), pp. 173–8.
Ibid., pp. 108–15.
Ibid., pp. 191–2.
For ghettoization policies in Poland, see C.R. Browning, The Path to Genocide: Essays on Launching the Final Solution (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), pp. 28–56. For Jewish Councils as part of ghetto life, see G. Corni, Hitler’s Ghettos. Voices from a Beleaguered Society, 1939–1944 (London: Arnold, 2002).
For more particulars about this reevaluation of basic issues about the Jewish Councils, see Michman, Holocaust Historiography, pp. 159–75; D. Michman, ‘Judenrat’, in The Holocaust Encyclopedia, ed. W. Laqueur (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2001), pp. 370–7; idem, ‘The Uniqueness of the Joodsche Raad in the Western European Context’, in Dutch Jewish History, vol. 3, ed. J. Michman (Assen: Institute for Research on Dutch Jewry and Van Gorcum, 1993), pp. 371–80; idem, ‘Re-evaluating the Emergence, Function and Form of the Jewish Councils Phenomenon’, in Ghetto Symposium, Conference Papers (Washington, DC: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, forthcoming).
I. Gutman, The Jews of Warsaw, 1939–1943: Ghetto, Underground, Revolt (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1983); Y. Arad, Ghetto in Flames: The Struggle andDestruction of the Jews in Vilna in the Holocaust (Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 1980); S. Bender, Mul Mavet Orev. Yehudei Bialystok Bemilhemet Ha’olam Hashniya, 1939–1943 (Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 1997) on Bialystok; Y. Peled, Krakov Hayehudit 1939–1943: Amida, Mahteret, Ma’avak (Tel Aviv: Ghetto Fighters’ House, 1993) on Cracow; D. Silberklang, ‘Yehudei Lublin, 1939–1943’ (PhD thesis, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem 2003) on Lublin; T. Fatal-Kna’ani, Zo Lo Ota Grodna. Kehillat Grodna Usvivata Bamilhama Uvashoa, 1939–1943 (Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 2001) on Grodno; E. Yones, Ashan Baholot. Yehudei Lvov Bamilhama, 1939–1944 (Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 2001) on Lvov/Lemberg; to name some of the best monographs (most were written as PhD theses in Hebrew).
N. Blumental, Darkp shel Judenrat. Te’udot Migetto Bialystok Uerusalem: Yad Vashem, 1962); idem, Te’udot Migetto Lublin. JudenratLelo Derech (Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 1967).
A. Ben-Menachem and J. Rab, eds., Kronika shel Getto Lodz, vols 1–4 (Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 1986–89), with introductions by L. Dobroszycki and I. Gutman; L. Dobroszycki, The Chronicle of the Lodi Ghetto 1941–1944 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1984).
A. Tory, Surviving the Holocaust. The Kovno Ghetto Diary (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1990).
A. Czerniakow, The Warsaw Diary of Adam Czerniakow. Prelude to Doom, ed. R. Hilberg, S. Staron and J. Kermisz (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 1999).
M. Piekarcz, ‘Judenrat: Mehkar Muzar’ [‘Judenrat: A Strange Study’], Molad, 41 (1982), 249–65.
L. de Jong, Het Koninkrijk der Nederlanden in de Tweede Wereldoorlog, vols 1–25 (‘s Gravenhage: Staatsuitgeverij, 1969–92). See also J. Presser, Ashes in the Wind (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1990), and W. Lindwer (in cooperation with J. Houwink ten Cate), Het fatale dilemma. De Joodsche Raad voor Amsterdam, 1941–1943 (‘s Gravenhage: SDU, 1995).
M. Steinberg, L’Etoile et le fusil, vols 1–3 (Brussels: Editions ouvrières, 1983–86).
For Germany, see the following studies: E. Hildesheimer, Judische Selbstverwaltung unter dem NS-Regime (Tubingen: J.C.B. Mohr [Paul Siebeck], 1994); O.D. Kulka, Deutsches Judentum unter dem Nationalsozialismus, vol. I(Tubingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1997); idem, ‘The Reichsvereinigung and the Fate of the German Jews, 1938/9–1943. Continuity or Discontinuity in German-Jewish History in the Third Reich’, in Die Juden im nationalsozialistischen Deutschland/The Jews in Nazi Germany, 1933–1943, ed. A. Paucker (Tubingen: J.C.B. Mohr [Paul Siebeck], 1986), G. Plum, ‘Deutsche Juden oder Juden in Deutschland?’, in Die Juden in Deutschland 1933–1945, ed. W. Benz (Munich: C.H. Beck, 1988), pp. 35–74; A. Margaliot and Y. Cochavi, Toledot Hashoa: Germania, vol. 1 Uerusalem: Yad Vashem, 1998), pp. 69–400; B. Meyer, ‘Das unausweichliche Dilemma: Die Reichsvereinigung der Juden in Deutschland, die Deportationen und die untergetauchten Juden’, in Solidaritdt und Hilfe fur Juden wdhrend der NS-Zeit. Vol. 5: Uberleben im Untergmnd: Hilfe fiir Juden in Deutschland, 1941–1945, ed. B. Kosmala and C. Schoppmann (Berlin: Metropol, 2002). For France, see J. Adler, The Jews of Paris and the Final Solution: Communal Response and Internal Conflicts, 1940–1944 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989); R.I. Cohen, The Burden of Conscience: French Jewrys Response to the Holocaust (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987); A. Cohen, Persecutions et sauvetages. Juifs et Français sous l’Occupation et sous Vichy (Paris: Cerf, 1993).
H. Rosenkranz, Verfolgung und Selbstbehauptung (Vienna: n.p., 1978); D. Rabinovici, Instanzen der Ohnmacht. Wien 1938–1945: der Weg zum Judenrat (Frankfurt am Main: Judischer Verlag, 2000).
For instance, A. Weiss, ‘Ledarkam shel hayudenratim bidrom-mizrah Polin’ [‘On the policies of the Judenrate in South-East Poland’], Yalkut Moreshet, 15 (1972), 59–122.
See A. Weiss, ‘Judenrat’, in Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, ed. 1. Gutman (New York: Macmillan, 1990).
A. Weiss, Hamishtara hayehudit baGeneral-Guvernernent uvi-Shlezia Ha’ilit bitkufat ha-Shoa [The Jewish Police in the General Government and Upper Silesia during the Holocaust] (Jerusalem: The Hebrew University, 1973).
Dov Levin, ‘How the Jewish Police in the Kovno Ghetto Saw Itself’, Yad Vashem Studies, 29 (2001), 183–240 and photographs.
See Arad, Gutman and Margaliot, Documents, nos. 103, 109, 119, 129, 199; Trunk, Judenrat, chapter 16; de Jong, HetKoninkrijk, vol. 5 (1974), pp. 573–8; idem, vol. 6 (1975), pp. 229, 230; J. Michman, ‘The Controversial Stand of the Joodsche Raad in the Netherlands: Lodewijk E. Visser’s Struggle’, Yad Vashem Studies, 10 (1974), 9–68; Czerniakow, Diary, entry of 20 July 1942.
See especially R.I. Cohen, ‘Dat umoledet — ledarka shel ha-konsistoriya hamerkazit betzarfat bitkufat hamilchama’ [Religion and Fatherland: The Central Consistory in France During the Second World War], in Bein Yisrael La-Umot [Israel and the Nations. Essays Presented in Honour of Shmuel Ettinger], ed. S. Almog etal. (Jerusalem: Merkaz Shazar, 1987), pp. 307–34.
For an overview of all these issues, see Y. Bauer, American Jewry and the Holocaust: The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee 1939–1945 (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1981), pp. 67–92.
For instance, S. Huberband, Kiddush Hashem (Hoboken, NJ: Ktav, 1987); E. Farbstein, Beseter Ra’am [Hidden in Thunder. Perspectives on Faith, Theology and Leadership during the Holocaust] (Jerusalem: Mossad Harav Kook, 2002); T. Rahe, Höre Israel. Judische Religiositat in nationalsozialistischen Konzentrationslagern (Gottingen: Vandenhoeck: & Ruprecht, 1999); P. Schindler, Hasidic Responses to the Holocaust in the Light of Hasidic Thought (Hoboken, NJ: Ktav, 1990); E. Schweid, Wrestling until Daybreak (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1994); D. Michman, ‘Problems of Religious Life in The Netherlands during the Holocaust’, in Dutch Jewish History, vol. 1, ed. J. Michman and T. Levie (Jerusalem: Institute for Research on Dutch Jewry, 1984), pp. 379–99; idem, ‘Jewish Religious Life’, in HolocaustEncyclopedia, ed. Laqueur, pp. 351–4; idem, HolocaustHistoriography: A Jewish Perspective, pp. 251–99.
Literature on this issue is also extensive, but often written by survivors of the movements and uncritical; for some volumes of major importance, see R. Perlis, Tnu’ot hano’ar hahalutziot be-Polin hakevusha [The Pioneering Zionist Youth Movements in NaziOccupied Poland] (Tel Aviv: Ghetto Fighters’ House and Hakibbutz Hameuhad, 1987); A. Cohen and Y. Cochavi, eds., Zionist Youth Movements during the Shoah (New York: Peter Lang, 1994); L.A. Sarid, Bemivhan ha-enut vehapedut [Ruin and Deliverance] (Tel Aviv: Moreshet, 1997); D. Blatman, For Our Freedom and Yours: The Bund in Poland, 1939–1949 (London: Vallentine Mitchell, 2003); see also R. Rozett’s contribution to this volume.
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Michman, D. (2004). Jewish Leadership in Extremis . In: Stone, D. (eds) The Historiography of the Holocaust. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230524507_15
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