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Abstract

This article explores some of the psychological and material conditions motivating Jewish resistance during the Holocaust. The author looks at the underground movement in Vilna and the partisan movements in the Russian forests, with specific attention to Tuvia Bielski's family camp of more than 1,200 Jews and the reasons behind its very high survivor rate (95%). The article also examines the relationship between identity and violence, the resurrection of self through violent encounter with the enemy, and the psychological dynamics motivating both resistance and the accommodation policies of the Vilna Judenrat. The political theory of Frantz Fanon is used to draw some group psychological inferences concerning the resistance's use of violence.

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References

Arad, Y. (1980). Ghetto in flames: The struggle and destruction of the Jews in Vilna in the Holocaust. Jerusalem: Yad Vashem Martyrs and Heroes, Remembrance Authority.

Davidowicz, L. S. (1989). From that place and time: A memoir 1938-1947. New York: Norton.

Fanon, F. (1988). The wretched of the earth (C. Farrington, Trans.). New York: Grove-Atlantic.

Levin, D. (1997). Fighting back: Lithuanian Jewry's armed resistance to the Nazis, 1941-45. New York: Holmes & Meier.

Tec, N. (1993). Defiance: The Bielski partisans. New York: Oxford University Press.

Tenenbaum, J. (1952). Underground: The story of a people. New York: Philosophical Library.

Trunk, I. (1979). Jewish responses to Nazi persecution: Collective and individual behavior in extremis. New York: Stein and Day.

Two Models of Political Organization

Abstract

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