Plunka argues that drama is the ideal art form to revitalize the collective memory of Holocaust resistance. This comparative drama study examines a variety of international plays - some quite well-known, others more obscure - that focus on collective or individual defiance of the Nazis.

Plunka argues that drama is the ideal art form to revitalize the collective memory of Holocaust resistance. This comparative drama study examines a variety of international plays - some quite well-known, others more obscure - that focus on collective or individual defiance of the Nazis.

"Holocaust accounts typically cast Jewish victims as meek, going "like sheep to the slaughter." Given such portrayals, people ask, "Why didn't Jews resist?" But Jews did resist, staging armed uprisings in ghettos and camps throughout Nazi-occupied Europe. This book's goal is not to dispel the myth of Jewish passivity, however; instead, it argues that Jewish resistance deserves explanation. Research on social movements shows that protest occurs when protesters have an opportunity for action and both the material resources and belief in themselves to get their protest off the ground, but members of Jewish resistance movements lacked these factors. So why did they fight back? Using methods of comparative-historical sociology, the book answers this question by comparing three Jewish ghettos during World War II: Warsaw (site of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising of 1943), Vilna (where activists planned for armed resistance in the ghetto but could not achieve that goal), and Lodz (where no plans for armed resistance emerged). It finds that resistance rested on Jews' assessments of the threats facing them, and especially on their hope for survival. Somewhat ironically, armed resistance took place only once activists reached the critical conclusion that they had no hope for survival and saw such resistance as the best response to their situation. These findings have implications for other examples of resistance under extreme conditions, such as prison riots and rebellions of enslaved people"--

Nechama Tec's Defiance, an account of a Jewish partisan unit that fought the Nazis in the Polish forests during World War II, was turned into a major feature film. Yet despite the attention this film brought to the topic of Jewish resistance, Tec, who speaks widely about the Holocaust and the experience of Jews in wartime Poland, still ran into the same question again and again: Why didn't Jews fight back? To Tec, this question suggested that Jews were somehow complicit in their own extermination. Despite works by Tec and others, the stereotype of Jewish passivity in the Holocaust persists. In Resistance, Tec draws on first-hand accounts, interviews, and other sources to reveal the full range of tactics employed to resist the Nazi regime in Poland. She compares Jewish and non-Jewish groups, showing that they faced vastly different conditions. The Jewish resistance had its own particular aims, especially the recovery of dignity and the salvation of lives. Tec explores the conditions necessary for resistance, including favorable topography, a supply of arms, and effective leadership, and dedicates the majority of the book to the stories of those who stood up and fought back in any way that they could. Emphasizing the centrality of cooperation to the Jewish and Polish resistance movements of World War II, Tec argues that resistance is more than not submitting--that it requires taking action, and demands cooperation with others. Whereas resilience is individual in orientation, Tec writes, resistance assumes others. Within this context, Tec explores life in the ghettoes, the organizations that arose within them, and the famous uprising in Warsaw that began on January 18, 1943. She tells of those who escaped to hide and fight as partisans in the forests, and considers the crucial role played by women who acted as couriers, carrying messages and supplies between the ghetto and the outside world. Tec also discusses resistance in concentration camps, vividly recounting the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp uprising on October 7, 1944. The refusal of the rebel leaders to give information under unspeakable torture, Tec displays, was just one more of the many forms resistance took. Resistance is a rich book that forever shatters the myth of Jewish passivity in the face of annihilation.

This book enables readers to learn about upstanders, partisans, and survivors from first-hand perspectives that reveal the many forms of resistance—some bold and defiant, some subtle—to the Nazis during the Holocaust. What did those who resisted the Nazis during the 1930s through 1945—known now as "the Righteous"—do when confronted with the Holocaust? How did those who resorted to physical acts of resistance to fight the Nazis in the ghettos, the concentration camps, and the forests summon the courage to form underground groups and organize their efforts? This book presents a comprehensive examination of more than 150 remarkable people who said "no" to the Nazis when confronted by the Holocaust of the Jews. They range from people who undertook armed resistance to individuals who risked—and sometimes lost—their lives in trying to rescue Jews or spirit them away to safety. In many cases, the very act of survival in the face of extreme circumstances was a form of resistance. This important book explores the many facets of resistance to the Holocaust that took place less than 100 years ago, providing valuable insights to any reader seeking evidence of how individuals can remain committed to the maintenance of humanitarian traditions in the darkest of times.

This book is a contribution to the emerging field of research-based performance, which seeks to gain a wider audience for issues that are crucial to our understanding of history and to informing our future actions. The book examines the role of theater in portraying the Shoah in France, the French Resistance, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Each of the three chapters consists of an original dramatic work by the author and an accompanying critical essay.