Jewish Resistance During the Holocaust Read online

  Jewish Resistance during the Holocaust

  Also by James M. Glass

  DELUSION

  ‘LIFE UNWORTHY OF LIFE’: Racial Phobia and Mass Murder in Hitler’s Germany PRIVATE TERROR/PUBLIC LIFE PSYCHOSIS AND POWER SHATTERED SELVES

  Jewish Resistance during the Holocaust

  Moral Uses of Violence and Will

  James M. Glass

  Department of Government and Politics University of Maryland, College Park

  © James M. Glass 2004

  All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission.

  No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1T 4LP.

  Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

  The author has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  First published 2004 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS and 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010 Companies and representatives throughout the world

  PALGRAVE MACMILLAN is the global academic imprint of the Palgrave Macmillan division of St. Martin’s Press, LLC and of Palgrave Macmillan Ltd. Macmillan® is a registered trademark in the United States, United Kingdom and other countries. Palgrave is a registered trademark in the European Union and other countries.

  ISBN 1–4039–3907–1 hardback

  This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources.

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Glass, James M.

  Jewish resistance during the Holocaust: moral uses of violence and will/ James M. Glass.

  p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 1–4039–3907–1 (cloth)

  1. World War, 1939–1945–Jewish resistance–Moral and ethical aspects. 2. Violence–Moral and ethical aspects. 3. Holocaust, Jewish (1939–1945)–Moral and ethical aspects. I. Title.

  D810.J4.G565 2004 940.53′1832–dc22 2004044372

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 13 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04

  Printed and bound in Great Britain by Antony Rowe Ltd, Chippenham and Eastbourne

  For the resistance survivors and in remembrance of their families and comrades, and for the memory of Rabbi Kalonymus Kalman Shapira of Warsaw who fought with spirit and will.

  Contents

  Acknowledgements Introduction: Memory, Resistance and Reclaiming the Self 1 1 The Moral Justification for Killing 9 2 Collective Trauma: The Disintegration of Ethics 27 3 The Moral Position of Violence: Bielski Survivors 55 4 The Moral Goodness of Violence: Necessity

  in the Forests 79 5 Spiritual Resistance: Understanding its Meaning 103 6 Condemned Spirit and the Moral Arguments of Faith 121 7 The Silence of Faith Facing the Emptied-out Self 141 8 Law and Spirit in Terrible Times 155 Notes 169 Bibliography 189 Index 199

  vii

  Cover

  Contents

  Acknowledgements

  Introduction: Memory, Resistance and Reclaiming the Self

  1 The Moral Justification for Killing

  2 Collective Trauma: The Disintegration of Ethics

  3 The Moral Position of Violence: Bielski Survivors

  4 The Moral Goodness of Violence: Necessity in the Forests

  5 Spiritual Resistance: Understanding its Meaning

  6 Condemned Spirit and the Moral Arguments of Faith

  7 The Silence of Faith Facing the Emptied-out Self

  8 Law and Spirit in Terrible Times

  Notes

  Bibliography

  Index

  Acknowledgements

  I am grateful to a number of individuals and organizations for invaluable aid and assistance during the writing of this book. I would like to thank the Simon Wiesenthal Center and the Shoah Foundation, both in Los Angeles, for their help in locating resistance survivors. I am also indebted to Wendy Lower and Paul Shapiro and their staff, of the Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., for allowing me access to the library, archives and working space within the Museum. Also I would like to thank Michael Haley-Goldman for his archival assistance at the Museum.

  Pieces of this research were developed in a number of invited presentations: The George Washington University Seminar in Political Psychology and Leadership (The Judenrat and Collaboration), December 1997; The Washington School of Psychiatry, Seminar in Group Psychology (Resistance, Collaboration and Groups in the Holocaust), January 1998; The Sheppard and Enoch Pratt Hospital: Grand Rounds Lecture (The Impact of Violence on the Self), July 1998; The United States Holocaust Conference in Millersville, PA, Plenary Session (Mass Murder and the Actions of Jewish Resistance), April 1998; The Austin Riggs Center, Conference on ‘Psychosis and its Social Context’, Stockbridge, MA (Resistance, Madness and Voices of Sanity), October 1998; the Conference for the Study of Organizational Change, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO (The Psychology of Organization in Jewish Resistance during the Holocaust), September 1998; the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies. Noon Lecture Series (Franz Fanon’s Theory of Violence and Jewish Resistance during the Holocaust), May 1999; The United States Department of State, Secretary’s Open Forum (The Psychology of Genocide and the Psychology of Resistance), June 1999; the United States Department of State, Foreign Service Institute, Alexandria, VA (The Concept of ‘Worthless Life’ and the Jewish Resistors’ Reaction and Action), October 2000; California State University at Long Beach, Lecture Series (Moral Issues in Jewish Resistance and Annihilatory Violence), November 2002.

  ix

  Mitch Branff, of the Jewish Partisan Educational Foundation in San Francisco, was most generous in helping me locate resistance survivors and in speaking to me about their experiences. Thanks are also due to Shaare Tefile congregation in Silver Spring, Maryland and B’nai Shalom congregation in Olney, Maryland for the opportunity to speak with the members about Jewish resistance and the psychological position of the survivor. For research support and funding I would like to thank the Provost’s Office of the University of Maryland College Park for the Distinguished Scholar Teacher Award, 2002–3, and its research stipend.

  I am indebted to conversations with Miles Lerman, founder of the Miles Lerman Center for the Study of Jewish Resistance at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, and Yitzhak Arad, both resistance survivors, who gave me valuable insights into the facts and experience of resistance and its psychology. Also, the research would not have been possible without the cooperation and conversation with the many resistance survivors who graciously offered me their time, hospitality and recollection. I am particularly grateful to Shlomo Berger, Vernon Rusheen, Ben Kamm, Sonia Bielski, Sonia Oshman, Leah Johnson, Charles and Sarah Bedzow, Aaron (Bielski) Bell, Elsi Shor, Frank Blaichman and Simon Trakinski. These resistance survivors were not only generous with their time, but willing to respond to questions that moved into emotionally troubling areas. I would also like to thank Zvi Bielski who gave me invaluable insights into the actions of his father, Zush Bielski, and his uncle, Tuvia Bielski.

  A number of friends and colleagues commented on different phases of the typescript and its development. I
would like to thank Bob Alperin, Benjamin Barber, Mary Caputi, Michael Diamond, Jane Flax, Roger Haydon, Jerrold Post, Seymour Rubenfeld, Mark Warren and Victor Wolfenstein. Mark Lichbach and Fred Alford read the entire typescript, and their suggestions were critical in the various permutations of the approach and the ethical, religious and theological issues pertaining to Jewish resistance. I would also like to thank my typist Flora Paoli who, over the years, has been an inspiring source of information, technical intelligence and editing. Her painstaking care in transforming scribbled-over text into a neat typescript has been an art that guides and informs my writing.

  Finally, without the patience and tolerance of my family – my wife, Cyndi, and my sons, Jeremy and Jason – I never would have had the emotional space to complete this study. For their understanding and occasional interruptions, which unknown to them were essential for my own mental equilibrium over the course of writing this book, I am grateful.

  Introduction: Memory, Resistance and Reclaiming the Self

  I speak with resistance survivors, in their late seventies and early eighties, in New York, Los Angeles, Miami, Philadelphia, listening to their extraordinary stories and the trajectories of their lives. When they bring back the past, the setting changes and the words take the ‘Then’ into the ‘Now.’ Their stories move through the reach of the past and the pull of the present without boundary; their narratives possess the sense of literally being there.

  They show me snapshots, fading black-and-white images of treasured memories, pictures of young men in uniform, groups of soldiers, men and women barely out of their teens, holding rifles; two friends smiling, their arms round each other’s shoulders; the lovely girlfriend looking with affection towards the camera, leaning against a tree; a set of train tracks blown to pieces, and the commentary behind the pictures. Ben: ‘You know that girl. Was she pretty; she liked me and we were very close. But after the fighting stopped, she disappeared; I think she went back to Russia. I never heard from her; I don’t even think she knew my real name.’ The memories speak of smuggling people out of and goods into the ghetto, enduring imprisonment in stinking jails; witnessing friends and family shot and beaten; and in turn being beaten and threatened; evading Germans; trying to deal with local populations; narrow escapes; finding homes destroyed and parents missing; killing Germans and collaborators. As these stories evolve, the age in their faces disappears and the voice of the fighter emerges, a smoldering rage, then dejection as the recollection of despair and loss consumes their consciousness. I see enormous pride and dignity and an uncompromising attitude towards the Germans and their Polish,

  1

  Ukrainian and Lithuanian sympathizers. These ex-partisans speak of having killed without guilt; what they most regret is not having killed more Germans. And always the remembrance of despair and outrage. ‘What do you mean a God? How can you believe in God after you’ve seen a German soldier split a baby in two with rifle fire?’

  These stories often rattle my composure. I stop taking notes and sit there, stone cold and terrified, watching these partisan survivors going back in time, bringing into the present images of brutality, survival, atrocity and revenge. These ex-fighters and those who had been with them, tough, now old, relive their witnessing. Why be so intimate with me, a stranger? They want me to know the scene, the struggle, the impossibility of their circumstances. Not just the facts, but more – the despair. The deeper we move into the interview, the more it seems they want me to understand what it felt like to be there. There’s no apology for their rage. It needed to be affirmed, and they would not let go until I acknowledged its justice and the absolute conviction that what they did was right. It’s not that they asked this of me or put it quite this way; but I could see it in their eyes and the way their bodies moved through these narratives. My own reaction to their actions had nothing to do with politeness or emotional coercion. The facts were so brutal, how could anyone listening to this past not be drawn to a conviction of the justness of their actions, of the righteousness of revenge? I felt reverence and inadequacy in their presence, but always refracting the silent question to myself: would I have been as courageous? These men and women brought to their eighties two lives: one truncated by an unimaginable violence; the other a series of struggles and blessings embodied in a discourse of sheer pride over the accomplishments of their lives in America.

  How proud they were of being Jewish, not in any theological sense, but having saved an identity and, in some instances, having rescued other Jews from certain death. It was a pride in having passed on an identity without being crushed in the process. It is not the idea of being the ‘chosen people’; that has no meaning for them, in the sense of possessing a special place or mandate from God. It seemed to be more like having endured and survived an outrage and preserved a history, a set of remembrances for another generation, thereby assuring the survival of that identity and its sacred words, artifacts and texts into the future. That is what they as survivors are so proud of – having acted as instruments of the Torah’s enduring strength through time.

  Each attributed survival, in part, to luck; and indeed luck was very much an aspect of their story. But luck figures as only a piece of the story; there is also their rage, tears, comradeship with others. The durability of resistance communities too requires acknowledgement. For these resistors, as their stories remind us time and again, community never disappeared; even if it was fighting alongside Russians or sharing meals with anti-Semites, community saved them

  – community as witnessing, as a band enacting revenge, as a unit undertaking combat missions. No one, they insisted, could have survived alone. Even in Auschwitz, the underground community of the resistance saved many, not each fighting for himself, which the survivors maintain defined ‘ethics’ in the camps. But there was more to it, more than the focus on one’s own survival. In Auschwitz the underground community saved those it chose to save or believed it had to save. It ceased to matter to the Jews in the forests and the undergrounds whether they might be killed. None believed they would survive the war. Each they told me, over and over again, had moved beyond physical survival as an end in itself. What mattered more lay in retribution, killing and, for some, rescue, satisfaction in knowing they had sent the enemy to his grave or had frustrated his ability to fight, whether by sabotaging train tracks, arms depots or fuses manufactured at Auschwitz-Buna.

  No guilt is expressed at having killed sympathizers; no guilt about taking whatever food they needed. These men and women became the surviving remnant for whom revenge meant saving identity and doing whatever it took to resist the oppressor’s efforts to take it away. Schlomo Berger lost his outward identity as a Jew for three years; in order to fight the Germans he joined a Polish resistance group and passed himself as a Catholic, learning the religious practice and theology from a priest while imprisoned for six months by the Germans. ‘I couldn’t be a Jew; they would have killed me.’ But the German assault on spirit never penetrated to the inner core of a self that knew who he was, what he called his ‘steel fence’ of faith which protected his identity and will. It was a resolve still visible in his eyes, as if he were speaking directly in the present; it is there, in his living room now and in those Polish forests that are still very much in the forefront of his consciousness.

  ‘Then’ and ‘now’ lose boundaries; the resistance survivors are back there, and in these interviews they want me to see what they are seeing. ‘Then’ breaks into the presence of the space we occupy; the violence of their memories, the unsatisfied desire for revenge, the hatred of those who collaborated and killed Jews, give their words a heavy weight that belies the tranquility of where we sit. Now, they have their children; and they want their children to see, to understand. For years, they refused to return to those anguished places in their memories; now, their pride lies in their being thankful to watch their children grow, succeed, marry, establish families, to become grandparents and great-grandparents. This is a profound delight, and in their voic
es is taken as a sign of victory, as if they were triumphant, saying to the Germans across the divide of time: ‘You could take away so much; my childhood, my parents, my family; but here is my family, my world, and look at the wonder of it; look at how it has blossomed; that is certainly enough. You did not succeed, you did not win. We won, because look at what we have accomplished!’ These survivors from Hell gave their children a religious education; and while for so many years they remained silent about their experience, their silence never demonstrated a loss of spirit, but was rather a survival of spirit. In the Bar and Bat Mitzvah, the Hebrew lessons and schools, what was being celebrated for these survivors was not only the triumph of their children and the mastery of difficult texts and rituals, but a cultural identity in time that could not be crushed, a special pleading for words that go back centuries and form a living presence in the rituals of Jewish rites of passage and observance. Lighting candles in Los Angeles or New York or New Jersey affirmed the practice and meaning of that history and its survival in the children of those who fought for just these very moments.

  The pride in their children’s accomplishments was a pride denied to their own parents; deprived of the pride of their own parents’ joy, these survivors replicate that pride in what they feel towards their own children’s accomplishments. It is a tribute to their lost parents, and the lost moments and times of children thrown into a universe where every imaginable security had been blasted into nothingness. Not to have a grave to mark where your parents lie; not to know how or when they died; not being able to say goodbye – none of us today knows that horror or that emptiness, the absence of being.

  None of us can imagine what it is like to live with those memories, those uncertainties, and the abject feeling of not having been able to save your family. Nothing replaces that kind of severed and truncated experience of loss. Being there for their own children; having the pleasure of knowing they can witness what their parents never witnessed, to listen to the sheer joy of Ben as he describes to me his grandson’s rock concert in Spain – reflections like these, which we take so much for granted, become symbols of a spiritual transcendence and a Kaddish, or prayer for the dead, for the survivors’ own parents and lost families.