Resisting the Holocaust: Upstanders, Partisans, and Survivors

Gr 9 Up—Bartrop, a university professor and Holocaust and genocide scholar, has written about 200 essays on people who circumvented Nazi policies, protected Jewish neighbors (and, in some cases, strangers), and fought, protested, organized, and in other ways resisted efforts to "disenfranchise, dehumanize and ultimately destroy" the Jewish population in Europe. Most essays are about two pages in depth. Black-and-white photos accompany about 20 entries. Some names will be familiar (Varian Fry, Oskar Schindler, Max Schmeling, Raoul Wallenberg), though many will not. Entries give a brief overview of each life and place the person and actions in the context of the Holocaust. Most essays end with a sentence or two stating how the individual died or relating current activities, if applicable. Many of the people died violently during the 1930s and 1940s. Bartrop notes that rather than selecting the most prominent individuals, he has attempted to show the breadth of resistance efforts, from religious figures to journalists to university students to military figures to Nazi prisoners. Primary source documents, with brief commentary, comprise the last 70 pages. Some documents are drier than others, from a song and several handbills calling for action to a six-page report on the delivery of Zyklon B to concentration camps.