Learning from the past ~ lessons for today - Holocaust Education ...

Holocaust Memorial Day 2010
Resistance in the Ghettos
Active Resistance in Other Ghettos
Members of the Jewish Resistance movements in other
ghettos staged armed uprisings. There were revolts in Krakow,
Vilna, Bialystok, Czestochowa and several smaller ghettos.
Passive Resistance in the Ghettos
Starvation in the Ghettos
Starvation was one of the main causes of death in the
ghettos during the Nazi era. Jews in the Warsaw ghetto
were allowed 181 calories per day and there was no
provision for food for children in the ghettos. Kovno, Lodz
and Warsaw ghettos relied on work for the German
factories. The inhabitants who had work permits received
rations that enabled them to survive. Smuggling in of food,
through sewers, holes in walls and other small spaces, was
carried out by children.
Lighting of the seventh Chanuka candle in the ghetto
Yad Vashem
Although Jewish schools and religious education were
forbidden in the ghettos, the Jewish residents managed to
run clandestine religious schools and to observe Jewish
festivals and religious rituals; youth movements, Yiddish
theatre, musical societies and poetry recitals flourished in
the ghettos. They were undertaken at considerable risk by
the ghetto inhabitants. This form of maintaining Jewish
cultural heritage under such difficult circumstances is
often considered ‘passive resistance’.
Selling bread illegally in the Kovno ghetto.
This man was shot a few days after the photograph was taken.
Yad Vashem
Resistance
To smuggle a loaf of bread was to resist
To teach in secret was to resist
To cry our warning and shattering illusion was to resist
To forge documents was to resist
To smuggle people across borders was to resist
To chronicle events and conceal the records was to resist
To hold out a helping hand to the needy was to resist
To contact those under siege and smuggle weapons was to resist
To fight with weapons in streets, mountains, and amid forests was to resist
To rebel in death camps was to resist
To rise up in ghettos, among the crumbling walls, in the most desperate revolt was to resist
Chaim Guri and Monica Avrahami
From: Ghetto Fighters House, Israel, as shown in the exhibition Fighting for Dignity:
Jewish Resistance in Kraców, Galicia Jewish Museum.
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