citizens and as Bulgarians. Jews in Italy were largely protected by Mussolini
until his overthrow in 1943. Only thereafter were Italian Jews deported by
the newly installed Nazi regime. In the end, more than 80 percent of Italian
and Bulgarian Jews survived.
Resistance, collaboration, response
In retrospect, any Jewish resistance is remarkable, given the situation. Jews
under Nazi occupation were an unarmed, depleted, starving civilian popula-
tion facing a highly trained, well-armed military and the SS. Jews received
little or no assistance, not even from other resistance movements.
Nonetheless, virtually every ghetto and internment camp had some kind of
Jewish uprising. At the same time, it is important to maintain a sense of pro-
portion. The postwar notion of Shoah u-Gevura(Holocaust and heroism) does
not belie the fact that all of the remarkable acts of resistance saved only a
minuscule number of Jews compared to the millions who were murdered. As
Leon Wieseltier noted, “the Nazis did not win their war against the Jews; but
they did not lose it either.”
Historians’ definitions of resistance have varied from Raul Hilberg’s defi-
nition, which included only active and armed resistance – that is, partisans
and ghetto fighters – to a broader, all-inclusive definition that includes less
obvious forms such as passive and spiritual resistance, and “keeping body
and soul together under extreme misery.” A median and more usable defini-
tion was provided by Michael Marrus, who defined resistance as “organized
activity consciously taken to damage the persecutors of Jews or seriously
impede their objectives.”
Yet even in the context of these definitions, there were cases that are not
easily definable. In 1943, for example, a group of Jews escaped from the Vilna
ghetto, obtained weapons, and fought with local Nazi units. In response, the
Nazis killed the families of the fighters who were still in the ghetto and
thereafter killed the entire work detail of any Jew who escaped from the
ghetto. The ghetto newspaper called the original escapees traitors and con-
demned them for “endangering the existence of our entire ghetto and the
lives of their loved ones ... they are responsible for the spilt blood.” Jacob
Gens, head of the Vilna Judenrat, called fleeing to fight an act of cowardice,
and staying and enduring an act of heroism. In 1943, the Vilna Judenrat
wanted the Jewish underground to surrender its leader to the Nazis.
In general, active armed Jewish resistance never broke out until Jews decided
their situation was hopeless. Until the end of 1941, Jewish tactics consisted
largely of evading Nazi rules. In the ghettos, for example, this meant procuring
and providing food above the allocation from Nazis. This points to the contro-
versial actions of the Jewish councils in the various ghettos. Some have
condemned the members of the Judenratas collaborators, willing or unwilling,
who facilitated the Nazi efforts by registering the Jews and maintaining a sense
From renewal to devastation, 1914–45 225