Synopses & Reviews
In February 1943, the Gestapo arrested approximately 10,000 Jews remaining in Berlin. Most of them died at Auschwitz. Two thousand of those Jews, however, were locked into a collection center on a street called Rosenstrasse. These individuals had non-Jewish, German husbands, wives, and children. As news of the arrest spread throughout Berlin, hundreds of Gentile spouses, mostly women, hurried to the Rosenstrasse in protest. A chant broke out: “Give us back our husbands.”
For a week the Berlin police and uniformed SS dispersed the women with threats to shoot them down. Again and again, the women regrouped and advanced until the Gestapo backed down and freed their loved ones. This open protest challenged the Nazi regime on its very doorstep and became the single successful public protest inside Nazi Germany against Hitler’s campaign to annihilate European Jews.
Who were these intermarried Germans? Why did Hitler and Goebbels give in to the protesters and release two thousand Jews? Resistance of the Heart is a powerful response to these questions. Using interviews with survivors and thousands of Nazi records never before examined in detail, Nathan Stoltzfus has reconstructed an inspiring story.
Synopsis
"The Rosenstrasse protest . . . shows that a great number, probably a great majority . . . of the Aryan partners in mixed marriages did not forsake their Jewish spouses, despite often overwhelming pressures to do so. . . . What happened in this small and ordinary Berlin street was an extraordinary manifestation of courage at a time when such courage was often sadly absent."-from the foreword by Walter Laqueur "Goldhagen's Hitler's Willing Executioners created a furor with his sweeping and sensational claim that 'ordinary Germans' in Hitler's Reich were anti-Semites who had been longing for decades for the chance to kill the Jews. This timely new book by another young American historian presents another side to the picture. Stoltzfus is a careful and subtle historian and the result of his labors is no less sensational and thought-provoking."-Richard J. Evans, The Sunday Telegraph In February 1943 the Gestapo arrested approximately 10,000 Jews remaining in Berlin. Most died at Auschwitz. Two thousand of those Jews, however, had non-Jewish partners and were locked into a collection center on a street called Rosenstrasse. As news of the surprise arrest pulsed through the city, hundreds of Gentile spouses, mostly women, hurried to the Rosenstrasse in protest. A chant broke out: "Give us our husbands back." Over the course of a week protesters vied with the Gestapo for control of the street. Now and again armed SS guards sent the women scrambling for cover with threats that they would shoot. After a week the Gestapo released these Jews, almost all of whom survived the war. The Rosenstrasse Protest was the triumphant climax of ten years of resistance by intermarried couples to Nazi efforts to destroy their families. In fact, ninety-eight percent of German Jews who did not go into hiding and who survived Nazism lived in mixed marriages. Why did Hitler give in to the protesters? Using interviews with survivors and thousands of Nazi records never before examined in detail, Nathan Stoltzfus identifies the power of a special type of resistance-the determination to risk one's own life for the life of loved ones. A "resistance of the heart." Nathan Stoltzfus teaches history at Florida State University. Resistance of the Heart won the Fraenkel Prize of the Institute of Contemporary History and Wiener Library and was selected as a "book of the year" by The New Statesman.
Synopsis
In February 1943 the Gestapo arrested approximately 10,000 Jews remaining in Berlin. Most died at Auschwitz. Two thousand of those Jews, however, had non-Jewish partners and were locked into a collection center on a street called Rosenstrasse. As news of the surprise arrest pulsed through the city, hundreds of Gentile spouses, mostly women, hurried to the Rosenstrasse in protest. A chant broke out: "Give us our husbands back."
Over the course of a week protesters vied with the Gestapo for control of the street. Now and again armed SS guards sent the women scrambling for cover with threats that they would shoot. After a week the Gestapo released these Jews, almost all of whom survived the war.
The Rosenstrasse Protest was the triumphant climax of ten years of resistance by intermarried couples to Nazi efforts to destroy their families. In fact, ninety-eight percent of German Jews who did not go into hiding and who survived Nazism lived in mixed marriages. Why did Hitler give in to the protesters? Using interviews with survivors and thousands of Nazi records never before examined in detail, Nathan Stoltzfus identifies the power of a special type of resistance--the determination to risk one's own life for the life of loved ones. A "resistance of the heart..."
Synopsis
Who were these intermarried Germans? Why did Hitler and Goebbels give in to the protesters and release two thousand Jews? Resistance of the Heart is a powerful response to these questions. Using interviews with survivors and thousands of Nazi records never before examined in detail, Nathan Stoltzfus has reconstructed an inspiring story...
Description
Includes bibliographical references (p. [355]-364) and index.