Resistance Fighters and Those Whom Helped Others

These include: the Polish Underground; German citizens who disagreed with the Final Solution, Euthanasia Policy, or other policies they witnessed; Russian Partisans; and other militant or civilian groups or individuals who defied the Nazi Regime to help themselves and their neighbors.

Some of these rescuers had unofficial titles, such as the Kindertransports (a group of people who rescued Jewish children from Germany and sent them to England to live in safety) or the Hidden Children (Jewish children in the Netherlands were hidden in Catholic families or moved around from family to family to keep them safe). Other individuals had now-famous names, such as Schindler or Wallenberg. However, there were millions of people who resisted the Nazi Regime and its policies. Some lived in cities or country homes, some lived in forests, some even lived in the camps or Nazi barracks. People were transported, hidden in homes and businesses, given false papers, and helped in varying other ways.

These people who helped were considered enemies for the very fact that they resisted the Nazis and aided the ‘enemies’ of the Nazis. Often, if someone was caught who was part of resistance, he or she would be imprisoned or executed. Some wore purple triangles as conscientious objectors, others wore the red triangle of political prisoners or the black triangle of the asocials (1)(2).

One law in the Nazi regime demanded that German citizens divorce those who were considered inferior or enemies (Jews, African descended, etc.). If the German citizen refused this divorce, he or she was imprisoned. Many of these prisoners did not survive (3).

According to one of the survivors from Auschwitz, Primo Levi, an Jewish Italian chemist, “One section of the camp itself is in fact set aside for civilian workers of all nationalities who are compelled to stay there for a longer or shorter period in expiation of their illicit relations with Haftlinge (prisoners), This section is separated from the rest of the camp by barbed wire, and is called E-Lager, and its guests E-Haftlinge. ‘E’ is the initial for ‘Erziehung’ which means education (4).”

Sources:

(1) Terese Pencak Schwartz. Holocaust: Non-Jewish Victims. http://www.holocaustforgotten.com/Newsletter.htm (accessed April 15, 2011).

(2) Hoss, Rudolph, and Primo Levi. Death Dealer: the Memoirs of the SS Kommandant at Auschwitz. Edited by Steven Paskuly. Translated by Andrew Pollinger. New York City: Da Capo Press, 1992.

(3) Terese Pencak Schwartz. Holocaust: Non-Jewish Victims. http://www.holocaustforgotten.com/Newsletter.htm (accessed April 15, 2011).

(4) Levi, Primo, and Philip Roth. Survival in Auschwitz: the Nazi Assault on Humanity. Translated by Stuart Woolf. New York City: Touchstone: Simon & Schuster, 1996, page 83.