A group of Jewish partisans in the Rudniki forest, near Vilna, between 1942 and 1944. – US Holocaust Memorial Museum. Copyright © United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, DC
Zog Nit Keynmol Az du Gueist Dem Letztn Veg…
Never say that you are walking on your last road…
With these words starts the song written by Hirsh Glick in the Vilna Forest for the Partisans.
With time, the song spread through all the forests, not just of Eastern Europe but actually from all over the world to join all those who where fighting the Germans and their allies or who, after the war, where remembering the uprisings and fights the Jews fought against their latest enemy.
For those who think the Jews where slaughter like lambs let me just remind you that nobody except for England and Russia, resisted the Germans longer than the Warsaw Ghetto Jews whose uprising lasted from the 19th of April (that’s way this is the day selected for their worldwide remembrance) until the 13th of May when the last 10 survivors escaped the Ghetto through the sewers.
Not even one year later, when all the non-Jewish population of Warsaw much larger in numbers and much better equipped decided to rise against the Germans they couldn’t hold them back this long even when the Russians where already at the doorstep of the city and the Germans where already loosing the war.
What’s more, nobody but the Jews organized and carried out uprisings inside the concentration camps. Not even the many allied soldiers –specially Russian and western European- taken to these camps by the Germans.
Still, the Jews, starving and without any outside support fought back and actually won in a few cases as in Sobibor and for a short period of time in Treblinka which was after the uprising burned to the grounds to eliminate any testimony of the dead and the fighters. Even Auschwitz saw an uprising. Yes, Jews never said “They where walking on their last journey” so much so that even inside the worst ghettos they managed to maintain an educational system to teach children about their culture and traditions fully convinced that would survive this new enemy.
For those who think the Jews where slaughter like lambs let me just remind you that nobody except for England and Russia, resisted the Germans longer than the Warsaw Ghetto Jews whose uprising lasted from the 19th of April (that’s way this is the day selected for their worldwide remembrance) until the 13th of May when the last 10 survivors escaped the Ghetto through the sewers.
Not even one year later, when all the non-Jewish population of Warsaw much larger in numbers and much better equipped decided to rise against the Germans they couldn’t hold them back this long even when the Russians where already at the doorstep of the city and the Germans where already loosing the war.
By honoring these people, our purpose is to offer contemporary youth an inspirational model and a more accurate perspective of events that took place during the Holocaust, focusing on the Jewish response and Jewish life rather than just on Nazi atrocities. We hope to give young Jews a perception of the Jewish fighters as real people with every-day concerns but, most importantly:
