H8: Jewish Resistance

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All the information below is connected with resistance
during the Holocaust. Some of it is just useful to
understanding more about resistance, but you may also
find that some of it can be used as part of one of the
programmes which are suggested on the previous page.

Hymn Of The Partisans

This is a poem written by Hirsh Glik and put to music by
Dmitri Porkrass. The song became the hymn of the United
Partisan Organisation in 1943. It spread to all the camps in Eastern Europe and later to all Jewish communities the world over. It was translated into several languages and is today sung at memorial meetings for martyred Jews.

"Never say that you are going your last way,
Though lead-filled skies above blot out the blue of day.
The hour for which we long will certainly appear,
The earth shall thunder 'neath our tread that we are here!

From lands of green palm trees to lands all white with snow,
We are coming with our pain and with our woe,
And where'er a spurt of our blood did drop,
Our courage will again sprout from that spot.

For us the morning sun will radiate the day,
And the enemy and past will fade away,
But should the dawn delay or sunrise wait too long,
Then let all future generations sing this song.

This song was written with our blood and not with lead,
This is no song of free birds flying overhead,
But a people amid crumbling walls did stand,
They stood and sang this song with rifles held in hand."

Yossel Rakover's Appeal To G-d

In the ruins of the Ghetto of Warsaw, among heaps of charred rubbish, there was found, packed tightly into a small bottle, a testament, written during the ghetto's last hours by a Jew named Yossel Rakover. Some extracts are written below:

"I am proud that I am a Jew not in spite of the world's treatment of us, but precisely because of this treatment. I should be ashamed to belong to the people who spawned and raised the criminals who are responsible for the deeds that have been perpetrated against us or to any people who tolerated these deeds.

I believe that to be a Jew means to be a fighter, an everlasting swimmer against the turbulent human current. The Jew is a hero, a martyr, a saint. You, our evil enemies, declare that we are bad. I believe that we are better and finer than you, but even if we were worse, I should like to see how you would look in our place!

I die peacefully, but not complacently; persecuted but not enslaved; embittered, but not cynical; a believer, but not a supplicant; a lover of G-d, but no blind amen-sayer of His.

Hear, O Israel, the Lord our G-d the Lord is One. Into your hands, O Lord, I consign my soul."

A Manifesto Of The Jewish Resistance

This was published by the commander of the Jewish Resistance in the Vilna Ghetto on September 1 1943.

"Offer armed resistance! Jews, defend yourselves with arms!

The German and Lithuanian executioners are at the gates of the ghetto. They have come to murder us! Soon they will lead you forth in groups through the ghetto door.

Anyone who passes through the ghetto gate will go to Ponar!

And Ponar means death!

Jews, we have nothing to lose. Death will overtake us in any event. And who can still believe in survival when the murderer exterminates us with so much determination? The hand of the executioner will reach each man and woman. Flight and acts of cowardice will not save our lives.

Active resistance alone can save our lives and our honour.

Brothers! It is better to die in battle in the ghetto than to be carried away to Ponar like sheep. And know this: Within the walls of the ghetto there are organised Jewish forces who will resist with weapons.

Support the revolt!

Do not take refuge or hide in the bunkers, for then you will fall into the hands of the murderers like rats.

Jewish people, go out into the squares. Anyone who has no weapons should take an axe, and he who has no axe should take a crowbar or a bludgeon!

For our ancestors!

For our murdered children!

Avenge Ponar!

Attack the murderers!

In every street, in every courtyard, in every house within and without the ghetto, attack those dogs! Jews, we have nothing to lose! We shall save our lives only if we exterminate our assassins. Long live liberty! Long live armed resistance! Death to the assassins!"

Poem

First they came for the Jews
and I did not speak out
because I was not Jewish.

Then they came for the Communists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Communist

Then they came for the Catholics
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Catholic.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Trade Unionist

Then they came for me
and there was no one left
to speak for me.

Pastor Niemoller

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