Jewish resistance in German-occupied Europe during World II took many forms, ranging from underground political activities and smuggling networks to armed uprisings in ghettos and camps. Historian Yehuda Bauer has described resistance broadly, including not only armed struggle but also efforts such as maintaining cultural life, documenting Nazi crimes, and helping others survive during the Holocaust.
Due to the overwhelming military power of Nazi Germany and its allies, the system of ghettoization, and the hostility or indifference of various segments of the civilian population, most Jews had limited opportunities for effective military resistance against the Final Solution. Nevertheless, there were numerous instances of resistance, including more than a hundred documented armed uprisings.
The historian Julian T. Jackson argued that Jewish resistance during the German occupation of France took three forms: "first, individual French Jews in the general Resistance; secondly, specifically Jewish organizations in the general Resistance; thirdly, Resistance organizations (not necessarily comprising Jews alone) with specifically Jewish objectives."
In his book The Holocaust: The Jewish Tragedy, Martin Gilbert defines Jewish resistance more broadly. He recounts widespread individual resistance in many forms, emphasizing that Jews fought their oppressors with whatever means were available. Gilbert also highlights the significance of passive resistance, arguing that enduring suffering and even death with dignity was a form of defiance. He writes, "Simply to survive was a victory of the human spirit."
Nechama Tec contends that any act of defiance against the restrictive and dehumanizing conditions imposed on Jews in Europe should be considered spiritual resistance. She asserts that actions such as ghetto leaders scavenging for food and medicine or the preservation of Jewish art and culture through institutions like the Jewish Cultural Association constituted passive resistance. These efforts, Tec argues, countered the Nazi aim to erase Jewish identity and culture. Similarly, Richard Middleton-Kaplan identifies spiritual resistance within concentration camps, including inmates saying prayers for Shabbat, mourning the dead, and making efforts to care for themselves and others.
Bauer similarly argues that resistance encompassed any action that upheld Jewish dignity, not only armed oppositionBauer introduced the concept of "amidah" (Hebrew for "standing up against"), which defines any effort to resist the destruction of Jewish life as an act of defiance.
Bauer also challenges the widely held belief that most Jews went to their deaths passively—"like sheep to the slaughter". He argues that, given the extreme conditions in which Jews in Eastern Europe lived, the surprising reality is not how little resistance occurred, but how much actually took place. Middleton-Kaplan examines the phrase "sheep to the slaughter" in both Jewish and Christian traditions, suggesting that in Jewish scripture, it can symbolize facing existential threats with faith and courage.
In The Myth of Jewish Passivity, Middleton-Kaplan cites Jewish resistance leader Abba Kovner, who famously used the "sheep to the slaughter" phrase in 1941 as a call to action. Kovner repurposed the phrase's original connotation, directing it toward an unresponsive or absent God. Historians such as Patrick Henry argue that the "sheep to the slaughter" narrative persists partly because forms of Jewish resistance beyond armed revolt are often overlooked.
The sociologist Rachel Einwohner argues that Jewish resistance during the Holocaust was constrained by what she termed "cultured" and "structured" ignorance. According to her, the Nazis imposed structured ignorance through misinformation, fear, and dehumanizing isolation in camps and ghettos, while cultured ignorance arose in Jewish communities through kinship values, hope, and reluctance to put fellow detainees in danger. Einwohner contends that organized resistance efforts were more likely to emerge when both forms of ignorance were overcome.
Ghettos across German-occupied Poland
In 1940, the Warsaw Ghetto was cut off from access to Polish underground newspapers, and the only newspaper allowed inside the ghetto was the General Government propaganda organization Gazeta Żydowska. As a result, between May 1940 and October 1941, Jews in the ghetto published their own underground newspapers, offering hopeful news about the war and the future. The most prominent of these were published by the Jewish Socialist Party and the Zionist Labor Movement, which formed an alliance. However, these groups had no access to weapons. While these newspapers lamented the destruction caused by the war, they largely did not encourage armed resistance.
Jewish resistance in Eastern and Western Europe took different forms. In Eastern Europe, Jews primarily engaged in unarmed resistance, such as smuggling food, forging documents, or leading escape efforts to forests, as seen in the Sobibór and Treblinka death camps. In contrast, armed resistance was more common in Western Europe.
Between April and May 1943, the Jews of the Warsaw Ghetto launched an armed uprising against the Nazis after it became clear that the remaining inhabitants were being deported to the Treblinka extermination camp. Fighters from the Jewish Combat Organization and the Jewish Military Union resisted with limited weapons, including small arms and Molotov cocktails. The Polish Underground State also provided external support by attacking German forces from outside the ghetto. Despite fierce resistance, the vastly superior German forces eventually suppressed the uprising, killing 13,000 Jews and deporting 56,885 to concentration and extermination camps. The Germans reported 18 dead and 85 wounded, though resistance leader Marek Edelman estimated German casualties to be closer to 300.
Despite these challenges, many other ghetto uprisings took place, though most were ultimately unsuccessful. Major uprisings occurred in ghettos such as Białystok and Częstochowa. In total, uprisings were documented in five major cities and 45 provincial towns.
Major resistance efforts took place in three extermination camps:
Treblinka Uprising (August 1943): Prisoners at the Treblinka extermination camp managed to obtain weapons after two young men used forged keys to access the armory. The weapons were secretly distributed in garbage bins. However, before the plan was fully executed, a Nazi guard discovered contraband money on a prisoner. Fearing he would be tortured and reveal the plot, the organizers decided to launch the revolt prematurely. The uprising began with the detonation of a single grenade—the agreed-upon signal. Prisoners then attacked Nazi guards with firearms and explosives, killing several German and Ukrainian personnel. They set fire to fuel tanks, barracks, and warehouses, disabled military vehicles, and threw grenades at the SS headquarters. The guards retaliated with machine-gun fire, killing approximately 1,500 inmates. Despite the chaos, around 70 prisoners managed to escape, some engaging in firefights with pursuing guards. The uprising disrupted gassing operations at the camp for a month.
Sobibór Uprising (October 1943): Led by Polish-Jewish prisoner Leon Felhendler and Soviet-Jewish POW Alexander Pechersky, inmates at the Sobibór extermination camp covertly assassinated 12 German SS officers, including the deputy commander, along with several Ukrainian guards. The original plan was to eliminate all SS personnel and walk out of the camp through the main gate. However, the discovery of one of the killings forced the inmates to act sooner than planned. Under heavy gunfire, approximately 300 of the 600 prisoners in the camp attempted to escape. Many were killed in surrounding minefields or recaptured, but around 50–70 inmates successfully evaded capture. The uprising led the Nazis to shut down Sobibór entirely.
Auschwitz Uprising (October 7, 1944): The Jewish Sonderkommando—prisoners forced to work in the gas chambers and crematoria—staged an uprising at Auschwitz-Birkenau. Female inmates had secretly smuggled in explosives from a weapons factory, which were used to partially destroy Crematorium IV. Members of the Kommando unit overpowered their guards and attempted a mass breakout. Three SS guards were killed, including an Oberkapo who was thrown alive into a cremation oven. However, the escape attempt was crushed by heavy gunfire, and almost all of the 250 escapees were killed. There were also broader plans for a general uprising at Auschwitz, which would have been coordinated with an Allied airstrike and a Polish resistance attack from outside the camp, though this never materialized.