One of the common misconceptions about the Holocaust is that Jews went to their deaths “like sheep to the slaughter.”
In fact, there were many acts of resistance, says Holocaust educator Belle Jarniewski, the executive director of the Jewish Heritage Centre of Western Canada.
The Warsaw Ghetto uprising, when Jews in the Polish city rose up militarily against the Nazis, is likely the best known.
Belle Jarniewski, executive director of the Jewish Heritage Centre of Western Canada, says there were many acts of resistance by Jews during the Holocaust.
But Jews also resisted in other ways, Jarniewski said, citing things such as underground schools, secret religious study groups, clandestinely produced and distributed newspapers, hiding holy books and keeping private journals. There was also an elaborate effort to blow up a crematorium in Auschwitz in 1944.
“Jewish resistance to the Holocaust was more than just the Warsaw Ghetto uprising,” she said. “But most people only know about that.”
That’s the subject of Resistance: They Fought Back, a documentary that will be screened Thursday at 7 p.m. at the Asper Jewish Community Campus Berney Theatre (123 Doncaster St.).
“It’s about the ways Jews fought to preserve life and their humanity,” said Jarniewski.
The screening, sponsored by the heritage centre and the Jewish Federation of Winnipeg, is especially important now, during a time of rising antisemitism in Canada and around the world, she said.
Jarniewski said she deals with hate email on a regular basis, including one from a Holocaust skeptic who told her that if it’s true, then Canadians should do the same thing to Jews in this country.
“It’s so important for Canadians to remember what happened in the Holocaust, that we don’t forget the lessons from that time,” Jarniewski said. “We can’t forget what happened when lies and hate were spread about one group of people and led to their murder.”
Jarniewski noted the documentary is being shown the same week as the 86th anniversary of Kristallnacht, or the Night of Broken Glass, when the Nazis unleashed a series of pogroms against the Jewish population. More than 100 Jews were killed, over 1,000 arrested and businesses, synagogues and homes were destroyed.
“Kristallnacht was a test for civil society in Germany, a test that they failed,” she said, referring to the silence from most non-Jewish residents in the aftermath. “We’re seeing that silence again.”
Admission to the screening is free, but registration is required at http://wfp.to/AuQ
The heritage centre and Jewish Child and Family Services are hosting the launch of Ordinary, Extraordinary: My Father’s Life, a new book by former Winnipegger Bernard Pinsky, about his father Rubin, a longtime Winnipeg resident and Holocaust survivor, on Nov. 10 at 2 p.m., also at the Berney Theatre.
Rubin Pinsky fled a Nazi work camp in May 1942, surviving for more than two years as a teenage partisan fighting the Nazis in the forests of Poland.
To register, contact the heritage centre at 204-478-8590 or jewishheritage@jhcwc.org. Each family that attends will get a free copy of the book.
Both events are part of Holocaust Education month.
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John Longhurst
Faith reporter
John Longhurst has been writing for Winnipeg’s faith pages since 2003. He also writes for Religion News Service in the U.S., and blogs about the media, marketing and communications at Making the News.
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