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We Will Not Go Quietly Into the Night

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The Resistance

"We can't be consumed by our petty differences anymore. We will be united in our common interests...you will once again be fighting for our freedom... Not from tyranny, oppression, or persecution... but from annihilation. We are fighting for our right to live. To exist. And should we win the day, (this shall be remembered) as the day the world declared in one voice: 'We will not go quietly into the night!' We will not vanish without a fight! We're going to live on! We're going to survive!"

~ "President Thomas Whitmore in "Independence Day" by Dean Delvin and Roland Emmerich

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Jewish Resistance During the Holocaust

At first Jews tried to comply with Nazi wishes, they thought if they cooperated they would be safe. However, by 1942 it became apparent that the Nazi's had no place for Jews in their new world. There were many Jews who were not willing to watch everything they loved be destroyed by their oppressors. Thus the Resistance Movement was born.

In the ghettos:

Resistance Movements within the ghetto were often small groups of people who would secretly meet to share information, collect weapons, and build defense plans. Often these groups were seen as dangerous radicals by other Jews within the ghetto. The most well known underground ghetto resistance group was that in the Warsaw Ghetto. It was the only resistence movement in all the ghettos of Europe to be successful. The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising started when Nazi troops arrived at Warsaw to take a new shipment of people to the death camps. The resistance group attacked troops, throwing homemade bombs at the Nazis. The Nazis responded by bringing in machine guns and burning down the ghetto's buildings. The resistance lasted for more than three weeks, when it had ended the entire ghetto had been destroyed. 8,000 Jews died during the resistance; however the Germans had only been able to deport half their quota to the death camps.

"Germans couldn't take over the streets, they start putting block after block on fire. They start burning the ghettos...the buildings ... and we're listening to the shooting."

~ Vladka (Fagele) Peltel Meed (Witness to Warsaw Uprising)

Outside the ghettos: Partisans

Some Jews living in the ghettos desperately wanted to do something to help, but felt that nothing could be done within the ghettos. Many of these people tried to escape from the ghettos. Those who were successful joined rebel Partisans living in the forests around the ghettos. These groups harassed German troops by blowing up railroad tracks, cutting telephone wires, burning bridges, and ambushing Nazi troops.