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Subject Guide: Resistance During the Shoah

Partisans in the Vilna Ghetto (RG 223.1, YIVO)

Archival Material

Abraham Sutzkever-Szmerke Kaczerginski Vilna Ghetto Collection (RG 223.1) [Digitized]

The bulk of the collection contains documents generated by the Judenrats of the Vilna ghetto during Nazi occupation. The Yiddish poets Abraham Sutzkever and Szmerke Kaczerginski, interned in the Vilna Ghetto before escaping to the forests as partisans, were instrumental in the removal of this collection from Vilna and its subsequent transfer to the YIVO Archives in New York. The collection is therefore named in their honor.

Abraham Sutzkever-Szmerke Kaczerginski Historical Collection (RG 223.2) [Digitized]

The Abraham Sutzkever-Szmerke Kaczerginski Historical Collection contains letters, manuscripts, and historical documents which were saved by the Yiddish poets Avraham Sutzkever and Szmerke Kaczerginski in the Vilna Ghetto. Sutzkever, Kaczerginski, and other members of the Paper Brigade, conscripted Jewish workers who were forced to work under the Einsatzstab Rosenberg, saved thousands of books, manuscripts and documents at great risk to their lives by hiding them in various places in the Vilna Ghetto.

Documents Pertaining to the Łódź Ghetto (RG 1482) [Digitized]

This collection contains various materials related to the Łódź Ghetto which were originally part of the Bund Archives. Series VI contains records related to the resistance movement. 

Hersch Wasser Papers (RG 225) [Digitized]

Hersch Wasser was an inmate of the Warsaw Ghetto from 1940 until 1943. He was an associate of Emanuel Ringelblum and secretary of the Warsaw Ghetto underground archive, code named Oyneg Shabes, organized by Ringelblum for the purpose of gathering documentation and testimonies on the situation of Jews in Nazi-occupied Poland. After the war Hersch Wasser was instrumental in rescuing the archive.

The collection consists predominantly of documents about the life and the annihilation of Polish Jews in the period of the Nazi occupation of Poland. The documents pertain to the destruction of the Warsaw Ghetto, and of Jewish communities in various parts of Poland in the years 1940 through 1943. Some documents are of a later date. Included are diaries, eyewitness accounts, testimonies, documents from Jewish councils, official and underground publications.

Isaac Kowalski Papers (RG 2360)

Approximately 1,500 sheets, systematically arranged, each containing information about a Jewish participant in anti-Nazi resistance groups in various countries. There are also miscellaneous materials, including G. Shapiro's Russian essay on Soviet-Jewish war heroes.

Papers of Julian (Yehiel) Hirszhaut (RG 720) [Digitized]

This collection contains the papers of Julian Hirszhaut, a Yiddish journalist and author of several works about the Holocaust in Poland. He collected a great number of historical documents on this topic, including hundreds of eyewitness accounts, which make up an important part of this collection. There are many testimonies in this collection that pertain to partisan efforts. 

Rue Amelot Records (RG 343)

Rue Amelot was a resistance group operating in Paris during the Holocaust from June 1940 until the Allied Liberation of France in the spring of 1944. The organization was composed of five relief organizations that provided food, clothing, and medical care to the Jewish community within Paris, as well as help to inmates in the nearby concentration camps.

Rue Amelot also participated in the secret rescue of Jewish children under the leadership of David Rapoport. It is believed that the group managed to save several hundred Jews from the Nazis during this period.

Territorial Collection France II (Holocaust Period) (RG 116 France II) [Digitized]

The Territorial Collection on France 2 is a subject collection of mixed provenance. Series 6 of the collection contains material related to protests, resistance, and the clandestine press. 

Territorial Collection Poland II (1939-1945) (RG 116 Poland II) [Digitized]

The Territorial Collection, Poland 2 is composed of documents that were amassed at the YIVO in New York City. Series III holds material concerning the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. 

Sorting of material at former YIVO building (YIVO)

Library Materials

Anthology on armed Jewish resistance, 1939-1945 / compiled and edited by Isaac Kowalski ; introduction written by Yitzhak Arad. Brooklyn, N.Y. : Jewish Combatants Publishers House, 1984.

Daring to resist : Jewish defiance in the Holocaust / essays, David Engel, Yitzchak Mais, Eva Fogelman ; editor, Yitzchak Mais. New York : Museum of Jewish Heritage, 2007.

Do not go gentle : a memoir of Jewish resistance in Poland, 1941-1945 / Charles Gelman. Hamden, Conn. : Archon Books, 1989.

Endurance : chronicles of Jewish resistance / Amnon Ajzensztadt. Oakville, Ont. ; New York : Mosaic Press, 1987.

Jewish resistance against the Nazis / edited by Patrick Henry. Washington, D.C. : The Catholic University of America Press, 2014.

Jewish resistance in Nazi-occupied Eastern Europe : with a historical survey of the Jew as fighter and soldier in the Diaspora / Reuben Ainsztein. New York : Barnes & Noble Books, 1975.

Jewish resistance in wartime Greece / Steven Bowman. London ; Portland, Or. : Vallentine Mitchell, 2006.

Partisans of Vilna the untold story of Jewish resistance during World War II / The Ciesla Foundation presents ; directed by Josh Waletzky ; produced by Aviva Kempner ; narration written by Josh Waletzky. [United States] : Docurama ; New Video Group, 2005.

Parṭizaner geyen / Szmerke Kaczerginski. [Bamberg] : Aroysgegebn durkh der Mifḳadah ha-rashit fun der Histadrut parṭizanim-ḥayalim-ḥalutsim P.Ḥ.Ḥ. in Dayṭshland [Farlag oyf der ṿokh],1949.

Pathways through the Holocaust : an oral history by eye-witnesses / by Clara Isaacman ; illustrated by Janet Katz. Hoboken, NJ : Ktav, 1988.

The book smugglers : partisans, poets, and the race to save Jewish treasures from the Nazis/ David E. Fishman. Lebanon, NH : ForeEdge, an imprint of University Press of New England, 2017.

The Minsk ghetto, 1941-1943 : Jewish resistance and Soviet internationalism / Barbara Epstein. Berkeley : University of California Press, 2008.

The truth and nothing but the truth : Jewish resistance in Lithuania / Alex Faitelson. Jerusalem ; New York : Gefen, 2006