Lesson 11. Resistance to the Holocaust

Question 1

• Events of Warsaw Ghetto Uprising

Answer 1

• 19th April 1943 (Passover Eve) = start of uprising
• German soldiers + police sent to deport remaining residents
• Commanded by SS Police Leader Jurgen Stroop
• Ghetto was deserted as the Jews had gone into hiding
• Surprise attack from ZOB + ZZW fighters → forced to retreat out of the Ghetto with
  12 dead
• Stroop returned with a larger force
• 2,054 soldiers + police, reinforced with artillery + tanks.
• Razed the ghetto setting fire to each building to smoke out rebels + civs
• Jewish forces = app. 700 fighters
• Poorly armed + lack proper military training
• Guerilla strikes from buildings, bunkers + tunnels.
• Assisted by ghetto population who refused to assemble for deportation

Question 2

• Nature of fighting during Warsaw Ghetto Uprising

Answer 2

1st urban resistance from jews
As Jews were significantly inferior and vulnerable to the Germans they used a guerilla tactic where one attacks and immediately retreats continuously

Surprise attack from Jews

Question 3

• Significance of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising

Answer 3

Lasted 27 days= showed that the Jews had a stand for and made the German SS army retreat twice.
First urban uprising against Germans in EU
Inspired other ghettos/killing centers/ death camps including Treblinka
Despite horrible treatment, their spirits were not broken.

Question 4

Causes of Sobibor Uprising

Answer 4

: There was a decline in the number arriving → rumours the Killing
Centre would be dismantled + all prisoners killed.

Question 5

• Events of Sobibor Uprising

Answer 5

Johann
Niemann, killed him
with an axe.
* In another camp, prisoners lured SS officer Josef Wulf killed him with an axe.
nine more SS personnel were killed in a similar manner.
the guards became alarmed and opened fire on the prisoners + those
prisoners with weapons returned fire
* → 300 prisoners fled and broke out of the prison with many being shot or dying
from a mines surrounding the camp

Question 6

• Consequences of Sobibor Uprising

Answer 6

At least 100 others were caught and killed during the
massive manhunt conducted by SS, police, and German army units
* Of the 200 escapees who were not immediately caught, only about 50 survived the
war, often with the help of the local population or by joining partisan groups.
* Many of the escapees who did not survive were betrayed to the Germans or killed by
Polish civilians or partisans

The prisoners killed eleven SS staff + two or more Ukrainian guards

Soon afterward, the SS brought in a group of Jewish prisoners
from Treblinka to dismantle the killing facilities and erase the traces of
Sobibor’s true function.
→ Nov 1943: those Jewish prisoners were murdered as well.
* The site was plowed, had crops planted + a Ukrainian guard camp set up.