Caroline Glick, Niall Ferguson, Shylock
Caroline Glick has an excellent video, as usual. In it, she refers to two articles that I happen to have read prior to listening to her video, and I recommend them as well. Here’s the one about Shylock at the UN. And here is “The Treason of the Intellectuals” by Niall Ferguson (he discusses the article in this YouTube video, if you prefer that medium).
And here’s Glick:
It occurs to me that Jews have long been criticized for supposedly meekly going “like lambs to slaughter” during the Holocaust, although it’s not true (I’ve written about Jewish resistance quite a few times before; see this, for example). Now Jews are condemned for fighting back to resist slaughter, as any other nation would, only taking even more care not to harm civilians than other nations would. This is classic anti-Semitism: whatever Jews do or don’t do is labeled as wrong.
Related, articulate and trenchant:
“A Hundred Days after Gaza’s October 7 (Part 3 of 4);
“Culpable Ignorance and the Devil’s Spreadsheet”—
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20357/israel-gaza-culpable-ignorance
H/T Powerline blog.
Unfortunately, the vast majority of Jews murdered in the Final Solution did indeed go meekly like lambs to the slaughter, and did so every step of the way, e.g., during the Actions, during the roundups and mass shootings, aboard the trains taking them to the death camps, while being herded into the gas chambers, etc. The vast majority. Their passivity is entirely understandable. But it cannot be denied.
Hence, “Never Again.”
We have to be honest about this. Jews are: they know.
When since childhood you’ve been overwhelmed with tales of vicious pogroms for millenia against your people, as you and yours are loaded into boxcars, it’s human nature to desperately hope that the lies you’re being told will turn out to be the reality you face. It’s a virtual certainty that the Jews loaded on those trains knew that if they got the slightest bit out of line that the best they could hope for from their Nazi guards would be a cracked open head. They had no guns and probably had been searched for knives and there were children among them.
True enough. But my point stands.
Ah, but “Relocation” is such a civilized and hope-giving word.
(So, by the way, is “Transformation”.)
And the Germans, the people of Bach, Beethoven, Brahms and Schiller, a nation at the cutting edge of science, technology and art, were civilized. No, they may not have liked Jews, exactly, but they were NOT barbarians…such was the assumption…such was the hope…such was the ultimate mistake.
(And there is almost ALWAYS hope…often when there oughtn’t be…such is human psychology…)
When it became clear that “Relocation” was in fact NOT relocation (in the vital sense of the word), resistance groups were formed in several Polish cities, the most well known being Warsaw and, IIRC, Lodz. Jews also joined partisan group but were forced in some cases to form their own after discovering—the hard way—that SOME of the non-Jewish partisan groups were as dangerous to them as the Germans.
There was also resistance from inside some of the death camps, hard as that might be to fathom….
The number of Jews who joined resistance groups — who fought back — was miniscule compared to the number murdered — who went “meekly, like lambs to the slaughter.”
Please note that I stated that their passivity is understandable. So stipulated. I’m not criticizing them for their passivity.
That said, my point stands.
Yes was true re jasenovac the croat camp oradour in france probably too many places across the continent to count
The haganah came from thr night squads wingate trained against the army of the righteous (husseinis militia)
IrishOtter:
Did you read the link I gave? If you did, I don’t see how you can claim what you’re claiming.
Let me make it even more clear. When people say “Jews went like lambs to the slaughter” there are implied corollaries that are sometimes stated and sometimes not stated. I will now state some of the possible corollaries:
(1) They could have done otherwise – they could have fought and did not.
(2) Other people could and WOULD have done otherwise.
(3) I (the speaker) would have done otherwise.
I don’t think those corollaries hold up for the most part.
Funny thing – no one says that the Armenians went like lambs to the slaughter. Or any other slaughtered group. No one says the Polish officers and intellectuals murdered by the Soviets (Katyn) went like lambs to the slaughter.
It is said of Jews,though, either because people don’t think it through, and/or are ignorant of what alternatives the Jews actually had available and how often they were used. Sometimes it is said by people who are anti-Semitic, and sometimes people are not the least bit anti-Semitic.
A few points, most of which I already made in various previous posts, but presented again here:
(1) Most Jews were unarmed to begin with, or had been disarmed.
(2) Deception by the authorities was very common and elaborate. Many people thought they were just being deported; deportations were common during the war.
(3) Enormous numbers of Jews had already emigrated if they could. Their opportunities were limited because many countries would not receive them, but they nevertheless did much as possible to get out. Two-thirds of German Jews left, for example, before the murders ever began. The ones who emigrated tended to be healthier and have more resources, leaving the old, the ill, children, the poorer, the weaker.
(4) Many countries were conquered by Germany so swiftly that the Jews didn’t have time to flee.
(5) In quite a few of these areas, the Final Solution was done in stages, so that first the Jews were put into ghettos and it was often years before the ghettos were “liquidated.” By that time, the ghetto inhabitants had been tremendously weakened by disease and starvation. And yet there were rebellions – completely doomed, of course – in several ghettos. Many people are aware of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, but not the rest:
And that was of people who had practically been starved to death. Also:
Bauer disputes the popular view that most Jews went to their deaths passively—”like sheep to the slaughter”. He argues that, given the conditions in which the Jews of Eastern Europe had to live under and endure, what is surprising is not how little resistance there was, but rather how much resistance was present. … In The Myth of Jewish Passivity, Middleton-Kaplan mentions Jewish resistance leader Abba Kovner, famed for his role in the Vilna ghetto uprising, quoted as early as 1941 using the “sheep to the slaughter” phrase as a call to action, arguing Kovner employed the phrase’s original connotation as a call to action towards an unmoving or absent God. Historians such as Patrick Henry have found that the “sheep to the slaughter” myth of Jewish passivity is partly tied to the apparent lack of discussion regarding forms of Jewish resistance outside armed revolt.
(6) Some Jews escaped, hid, were partisans, etc.. I’ve never seen a tally of how many. Nor do we know how many killed themselves rather than be under the Nazis’ thumb, whether it be a ghetto, a deportation, or death. According to Klemperer, suicides were very frequent.
(7) People waiting to be “deported” saw that those who resisted or tried to run away were simply killed by the armed guards, or by guard dogs. How many tried this? I have read that there were always some, but that most of those in line who saw this occur decided to take their chances with deportation instead of being murdered on the spot. There’s a certain rationality to that, especially because they weren’t sure where they were going and it might not have been to death.
(8) A huge factor was the knowledge that without fake papers they would not survive even if they did escape. They were very often living among very hostile populations, and Jews looked different and sounded different and only some were able to “pass.” Males were also easily identifiable as Jews because they were circumcized and the rest of the population was not.
That’s probably not even an inclusive list, but that’s what comes to mind.
Irish Otter:
I want to add that although you say that you aren’t blaming them for passivity, that is implied in the phrase – because humans are not sheep. Humans should resist – at least, that’s the implication. Sheep are, above all, meek and unthinking and docile creatures. And, as I mentioned in the above comment, people don’t tend to use the same phrase about other people in the same situation. I have never heard it said of another group of people who were murdered by an overwhelming group of well-armed and powerful people determined to kill them.
I think people who use the phrase for Jews during the Holocaust are also usually underestimating the number who emigrated, escaped, who hid, who resisted in a number of ways including with arms, who committed suicide, who resisted when lined up and who were immediately killed by the guards and never heard of again, or who went under cover and were caught.
I take the phrase, “like lambs to the slaughter” to mean innocents being unjustly murdered. The phrase isn’t “rams,” or “ewes,” or “sheep” to the slaughter, but “lambs.”
“Rams” would imply some inaction by those being injured. Rams are powerful, aggressive and defensive beasts. One would not expect rams to be easily or willingly led anywhere.
“Sheep” is often used to reference a docile or non-aggressive animal. When I think of sheep I picture adult ewes; somewhat vulnerable and trusting.
“Lambs” are typically used as an analogy for an animal deserving, even requiring care. “Like lambs to slaughter” is analogous to innocents being tricked into a brutal and unexpected death.
Again, I don’t think any such phrase is apt to define the atrocities of the Nazis and those they apprehended and imprisoned, even murdered. But I see that particular phrase as imposing blame on the slaughterers, not the lambs.
Rufus T. Firefly:
I have more often heard “sheep” said in this context. Another phrase I have heard many times is “meekly into the boxcars.”
Note also that the Wiki quotes I used in my comments to IrishOtter use the word “sheep,” used more commonly than “lambs” for the Jews in WWII. It not only implies criticism, but the criticism is often overt rather than merely implied.
neo,
I have no reason to distrust your research, and you’ve defended the response and actions of European Jews to the rise of Nazism well here, and in many, previous posts.
Personally, I’ve never understood anyone offering judgement in how individuals responded to such impossible and often incomprehensible circumstances.
“Meekly into boxcars.” I am no shrinking violet, especially when it comes to my loved ones, but I imagine, if I found myself in such a situation with my wife and children my primary thought would be to keep them safe and minimize their suffering. In other words, keep my head down and shepherd* them onto the train.” Charging a guard could only result in certain death for me, and would almost definitely mean my wife and children would be singled out for torture and death. Even if I were a childless bachelor, the Nazis would want to make an example of anyone not obeying. Fine if I’m ready for death, but attacking a guard would likely mean horrendous, immediate abuse to others in my group, to ensure no one else gets any ideas. Do I have the right to inflict that on those around me? “Meekly” seems the manly behavior in such a situation, but I also don’t judge those who did lash out. Again, an impossible, inhuman circumstance with no correct response.
*I almost changed that word, but it seems to fit the context.
Rufus T. Firefly:
Agreed. I understand what you’re saying.
And yet many people are very critical and imagine that they would somehow have been heroes if placed in that position. It’s so hard to envisage such a powerless situation
At the risk of committing the fallacy of arguing from authority, I will point out that I wrote an award-winning book on the Holocaust in Poland. The book focused on the experiences of one family, but my research into the subject infinitely exceeded those parameters. I know what I’m talking about. You may disagree with my views but you cannot say that I am misinformed or poorly informed. In other words: my views are based on, and formed by, exceedingly extensive and multifaceted research.
It seems to me that your comments, and the comments of others made in this thread, are colored by emotion which has caused you to misinterpret my comments. I was not passing judgement on what Jews did or did not do,, but rather stating my observations concerning their actions or the lack thereof. Statements in the nature of “what what you have done?” or “can you blame them?” are irrelevant to the discussion.
The phrasing “they went meekly like lambs to the slaughter” is yours. I was quoting your own words; and, yes, I know that you used them as an exemplar of what others have (wrongly) said.
As for saying “I don’t see how you can claim what you’re claiming”: I’m not going to get into that. You should be able to “see,” and if you can’t, well . . . I don’t think there’s any more I can say in that regard.
As for “I want to add that although you say that you aren’t blaming them for passivity, that is implied in the phrase.” That’s on you. I imply nothing of the sort. Again, you have misinterpreted my comments and accuse me of believing something I don’t believe. Everything you wrote after that is irrelevant to my point.
And by the way, are you implying that I am antisemitic by virtue of making those points? I surely hope not. Because that would be a grievous mistake.
Finally: please don’t bring the Armenian genocide and the Katyn Forest massacre into the discussion. What you said about them, in connection to you observations, are irrelevant to my statements. And, not incidentally, these are subjects which I have studied and written on at some length. The Christian Assyrians of Anatolia were walking alongside the Armenians when Kurdish tribesman perpetrated their genocidal murders, and they suffered equally in the attacks. The “Armenian Genocide” was also an Assyrian genocide. Very few people know this. Presently I am working, and have done so for the past ten years or so, to enable the Assyrians of the Nineveh Plains region in Iraq to prevent their extermination in the here and now. “Never again” is also an Assyrian catch-phrase — and a plan of action.
I’ve said my piece. I’m bowing out of this conversation. There’s nothing further I wish to say, or can say to clarify my position, much less to change your views on my comments.
the last century was an era of unmitigated bloodshed, part of what nietzche feared when he said ‘Gott is Totten’ a decaying hegemon like Ottoman Turkey, unleashed the Itijihad, the cleansing, the Czarist leviathan did the same through the protocols and the Black One Hundreds, that austrian paperhanger took tips from Lueger from Maurras and Drumont, and other players
when not only the government put your own neighbors are weaponized against you, what are your options,
Regarding imagining how one would act in a similar situation:
I cannot find his name now, but about fifteen years ago ISIS or some other Islamic terror group had hostages that they were about to behead. ISIS had put bags over their heads (as they often did when moving them about during captivity) and brought them in front of a camera so they could post the video online. One of the captives, an Italian, figured out what was about to happen, ripped off the head covering and said something to the effect of, “I’ll show you how an Italian dies!” Meaning, “I won’t die a coward, hiding from my executioner and if you are going to kill me you will look me in the eyes while you do it.”
I was amazed by his courage and composure in that situation. At that point he knew the fate of him and his colleagues was irreversible and he had the presence of mind to startle his captors, refusing to die anonymously. I’m sure they remember him. Also, his action made the video less effective. It showed one, lone man using his last breaths to defy them and ruin the effect of their broadcast.
Amazing. I will never forget his strength and bravery.
it wasn’t yet Isis, it was in Iraq, his name was Quatrocchi, around 2005, part of Zarquawi’s red wedding,
In his book, “The White Pill,” author Michael Malice cites many examples in the past 100 years where people lived in a tyrannical regime under constant threat of torture or death. He makes the point, again and again, that the courage many of us imagine we would have does not surface because of the pervasiveness of the lies and terror and the regimes’ use of family members. This podcast is a good synopsis of some of his research:
https://youtu.be/LQJy_7C8Gts?si=GPxhTZIx2onLz7G2
miguel cervantes @10:44am,
Thank you!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fabrizio_Quattrocchi
“I’ll show you how an Italian dies!”
While IrishOtter is bowing out of the conversation and on the whole I do not object strongly to any statement, I would note that where the Late Ottoman Genocides are concerned the Armenians, Greeks, Chaldeans, Assyrians and so forth were by and large not dispersed communities tied to largely large cities or their own often forcibly segregated farming towns like the Tsarist era Shetla but sizable ethnic groups with contiguous territory; local areas of population preponderance, and their own internal governing structures (encouraged by things like the Millet System) with actual teeth and autonomy.
This is one reason why the Late Ottoman Genocides turned out to be so much more complicated and nasty than names like “the Armenian Genocide” would have us believe (and that is plenty bad already). It was a series of interrelated conflicts going over about 3-4 decades, and while it was driven by genocidal intent by the Turkish governments and their Allies it turned into significant wars. The Assyrians, Armenians, Greeks, and so on could not be so easily isolated and crushed by genocidal Turkish or Kurdish armies and news of when that did happen (like in the disarmament and massacre of Van) spread far quicker. So you had an actual series of wars with the targeted groups fielding organized warbands and even small armies. And all too often they hit back and did so savagely and without a great discernment for things like innocence or guilt. I remember an American government mission to the region mentioning Armenian paramilitaries could be just as brutal as the Turkish and Kurdish ones, and while there was a qualitative difference (since the latter wanted to wipe out the Armenians entirely everywhere while the former did not) I have no reason to doubt the overall assessment.
I know there were plenty of Jews that took up arms whether in conventional militaries or in rebel groups, including specifically Jewish paramilitaries, and they could and did retaliate (the Bielskis in my opinion being one of the most well known in the West) but practically speaking they were disadvantaged from doing this in multiple ways. They did not form the majority in large regions. They were overwhelmingly urban or in the Pale. Their institutions were not geared towards sustaining a war effort independent of the host country except maybe in Russia. And centuries of brutal conditioning told them that rebelling against the government would be a quick way to death and exile while compliance – no matter how unjust – might give you a chance. The Romani/Gypsies suffered a similar problem. In contrast in the Ottoman Empire there was more of a tradition of armed resistance to authority being successful (ironically periodically helped by the Porte when dealing with other local powers). Which helped lead to a really cutthroat, costly sort of war not unlike the sorts we’d connote more with the Balkans or Belarus in WWII where once news got out the genocidaires would often literally have to fight for every village and then go through the countryside looking for surviving groups that were pushed to partially militarize. And while the kill rates were still usually disproportionate (especially in WWII) it was still a constant drain on manpower and resources for the genocidaires. Likewise to the all but forgotten Soviet wars of subjugation or extermination in the South and East from the 1910s to shortly after WWII where some groups like the Avars were essentially exterminated.
I also think it is worth noting the relative passivity in WWII to the Holocaust and related crimes was not at all exclusive to Jews. Hundreds of thousands if not millions of others also “trusted in the system” that victimized them to one degree or another or even got them killed. Whether it was the Nazis talking about how early in the war all you had to do was put a field kitchen at the front of Soviet POW columns and they would be led towards an agonizing and pre-mediated death, countless “guest workers” conscripted from abroad by the Germans often with the connivance of people like those in the Vichy Government, Axis POWs being led to the Gulag, or the staggeringly high rates of death for prisoners in Japanese WWII captivity (especially the Chinese ones). And in almost all of these cases “passivity” and cooperation with omens executioners dropped like a rock when news spread. The European Axis took more than half of all the Soviet POWs they would ever take during mid-late 1941 and early 1942. The majority of Western Allied POWs taken by the Japanese were hit in the first six months of running wild, and the majority of Japanese POWs likewise seem to have been grabbed in the first half or so of the war in China, with Nanjing apparently being a water mark (though it is a lot harder to tell due to the higher rates of simply releasing Chinese prisoners in exchange for promises they would be collaborationist troops.)
We also have things such as the show trial or substitute for it, with people – most of whom were not Jews in any meaningful sense – acquiescing to their dooms and sometimes fawning and begging in public to spare their families from similar fates by crushing themselfes in public like in the Soviet system or the Nazi “Honor Courts.” Even Rommel went somewhat similarly though he was given a somewhat more dignified end by being “allowed” to commit suicide and have his death be papered over in return for not sucking his family and himself into a court.
I do think this points to a much greater level of “passivity”, “meekness”, or “acceptance” in the Holocaust and the era of WWII in general than we tend to think of, and more widely than we often believe. Certainly going beyond what the Jews suffered. Western civilization was by and large a very legalistic thing and still is, and most communities in Europe were High Trust or at least High Authority societies where you generally did what you were told when you were Really told. And so people were shocked when that led to their deaths in concentrated mass murder or abuse by the millions in a way that say the Armenians certainly were not after the Van Massacre( both due to its scale but also its visibility and how well it was known due to circulating news.
As for specifically “Jewish Passivity”, misleading or incomplete as that may be, as a Roman Re-Enactor and amateur classicist I think at least part of it was due to a genuine historical change in both the wider Med World and particularly to Jews (and offshoots like Samarians). The truth is that I do think a great many Jewish leaders and communal leaders lost the… “taste” or “tendency” towards Communal violence (like we can see evident elsewhere among so many others and with periodic blow ups among Jews even well after). I’d largely trace this down to the events of Mid and Late Antiquity and the fact that most Jewish revolts against an overweening Gentile power tended to be utterly nightmarish failures. The Babylonian Captivity of course was a defining moment for the evolution of Judaism and it came after an ill-fated rebellion.
However, I am more familiar with later antiquity. And the blunt reality is that the last Jewish rebellion prior to about the modern age that I can think of really had any success in its grander ambitions was the Maccabean Revolt against the Seleucids and their puppet authorities, and while that was successful and still a heroic tale the Hasmoneans that came after it ultimately proved disappointing and helped bring the region and the Jews under the hegemony of Rome and Persia. While later the Jews and/or Samarians periodically rebelled against Rome (or to a MUCH lesser extent Persian and Muslim rule) and were utterly crushed pretty much every time, with the “Great Jewish War” leading to a major change in genealogical norms due to the sheer amount of war rape as well as the amount of death. The rebellions in Trajan’s era devastated and even exterminated entire diaspora communities that would not be restored for centuries if at all, and in particular Bar Kochba’s claim to be a military messiah that would save the country through armed force proved to be disastrously wrong and led to the expulsion of most of the Jewish population from their native lands and to his posthumous condemnation and even demonization by Rabbinical leaders.
I think this as well as a relative cooling of Christian-Jewish relations (and thus Roman-Jewish ones) explains a lot about the Jewish diaspora’s strategy for survival. Especially the demonization of Bar Kochka, who in addition to apparently being a very ruthless, proud, and ambitious fellow (if not to the same extent as portrayed in parables such as forcing his army men to chop off one of their own fingers or committing familial murder) had committed the great sin of claiming to be a messiah and deliverer and then failing to do so, and this marked a rather stiff change in not just Jewish theology and philosophy but also Jewish society (it particularly marked the ascendency of Rabbinatical authorities over would-be kings) and encouraged a push to co-exist and go along to get along even if it meant sucking it up to almost any injustice, because you might eventually ride out persecutions (or at least most of them) by enduring it with dignity and/or finding the right patrons, while if you rose up you’d just get genocided.
Of course Nazi strategy and that of their allies often exploited this like a fiddle. And I suppose it is not too surprising that Bar Kochka’s reputation and a push towards more Jewish militancy occurred around the time of the rise of Zionism and also the Bund in Eastern Europe.
Of course this is still extremely broad strokes and like others this misses much of the nuance and cannot account for all Jews or Samaritans or those tied to those communities, not even close. But I still think it is worth considering.
One of the captives, an Italian, figured out what was about to happen, ripped off the head covering and said something to the effect of, “I’ll show you how an Italian dies!”
==
The perpetrators were a winglet of the original Iraqi insurgency. The incident occurred in 2004, IIRC.
Bar kochba was 1800 years past, thereabouts, in the depths of a drought of really bad emperors, they only recovered again briefly around marcus aurelius, then went down again,
“… as a Roman Re-Enactor and amateur classicist.”
Nerd alert!
about 50 years after the itijihad, there was a rash of accidents against Turkish personnel in Europe and the US, on a similar schedule to the Troubles in the United Kingdom under an organization called ASALA I heard about it through the blog of Montes Bradley fils, he relates an attack this group carried out in Paris in 1982,
@Rufus
Just sounding the nerd alert on me Now?!?
IrishOtter:
I specifically said that only sometimes people who say this are anti-Semitic and “sometimes they are not the least bit anti-Semitic” in order to show that I was NOT making some sort of blanket accusation of anti-Semitism. And I certainly wasn’t accusing you of it. I am assuming you are in that second category.
Nevertheless – and although I also don’t doubt you have plenty of knowledge on the subject of Poland and the Holocaust – I continue to disagree with some of your conclusions, at least as I understand them. Perhaps it is a matter of defining what “passivity” is, and what is meant when people mention it in connection with the Holocaust.
I’m not going to spend tons more time on this right now. However, you write:
Jews (or anyone else) who object to the characterization of the Jews in WWII as “sheep to the slaughter,” however, point out that Jews were no more passive or “meek” than others would have been under the same circumstances (the word “meekly” means “in an overly submissive or compliant manner”). So why is the Jews’ supposed passivity pointed out over and over by so many people, as I’ve seen done? Why are the Jews of the Holocaust considered “overly submissive”? To me – and you may differ on this – “passivity” and “meekly” usually don’t just imply victimhood; they often imply that the victims might have (should have? could have?) fought and been less passive and were not. Again, I’m not saying that you are meaning to say this. But some people do say it very explicitly, and blame the Jews for it.
And as that quote I already offered in one of my previous comments says: “Bauer disputes the popular view that most Jews went to their deaths passively—’like sheep to the slaughter’. He argues that, given the conditions in which the Jews of Eastern Europe had to live under and endure, what is surprising is not how little resistance there was, but rather how much resistance was present. … In The Myth of Jewish Passivity, Middleton-Kaplan mentions … ”
So there are at least two Jews – I assume those authors are Jews – doing scholarly work and in one case writing a book to dispute the “passive” assertion about the WWII Jews. So obviously there are some Jews who don’t “know” that they were passive in the Holocaust, and who dispute it. I doubt those two are the only ones saying it, either.
“Never again” refers to several things, but a main one is the idea that in Israel Jews have an army and their own country, and are not living among populations that were often hostile to them as in much of Europe (of course, Israel is surrounded by hostile countries now, but at least the Israelis have an army). It also refers to fighting anti-Semitism itself, but we all see how well THAT’S going. Not well at all.
Lastly, I will reiterate that when people call the Jews in the Holocaust “passive” I believe they are often ignoring the vast numbers of people who escaped or attempted desperately to escape and failed, such as the man I describe in this post, who lived in Poland. He certainly didn’t go passively, but he indeed was slaughtered in the Holocaust. He tried all avenues and they were blocked. This was true of an enormous number of people who are not counted in the “resistance” statistics, and yet they were not passive.
We also have no idea how many committed suicide, but at least in Germany Victor Klemperer wrote that the numbers were high. I don’t think those people were passive, either.
Turtler:
Yes, that is part of my objection to the “passive” claim about the Jews in WWII. I haven’t seen it applied to anyone else; just the Jews. Plus, of course, they were less passive than most people think, given the possibilities that were open to them and their status in the countries in which they resided. There is also the question (as I wrote in previous comments on this thread) of how one defines “passive.” I think that desperately trying to escape and yet being blocked because you can’t get papers and/or you can’t get any country to take you in, for example, is not being “passive.” And yet it was an extremely common occurrence that many people seem to ignore when discussing the passivity question. Those letters I quote from in this previous post is I think a good example. He was murdered, but he was hardly passive IMHO.
Another example is going into hiding and yet being betrayed and/or accidentally discovered. This was not the least bit unusual, either. And yet those people – when sent to death camps, or killed on the spot, are probably not considered exceptions to the description of Jews during that period as being “passive.”
Otto Frank and his family were not “passive.” They fled Germany. Then when their new country was invaded almost overnight, they hid. They were betrayed and sent to camps, and all but Otto died there. So they I suppose would be considered part of the “passive” statistics. But they were anything but passive.
Regarding passivity in the face of impending doom when others have the drop on you.
There is the matter of being ” hostage” to one’s perceived obligations to family or “fellows”.
The weak become a chain around the neck of the potential fighters. The promise of adequate if not especially humane treatment at the end of the road if all cooperate on the way, versus indescriminate retaliation if any disobey, would have a lulling effect.
Even among fighting age men in early stages of captivity, some will resist rocking the boat and even sabotage the attempts of others to escape, fearing group punishment. There is the memoir of a captured U Boat captain being narrated on YT. Taken into custody at the war’s end by the British in Norway, he was scheduled to be repatriated after some weeks. For some reason, once in the western Rhineland the prisoners were transfered to the custody of the French in what they viewed as a doublecross.
The French then put them into cattlecars in order to transport them into western France. Having a pocket knife, he managed to work loose one board in the end of the car and squeeze partially through. Half out he was dragged back in and held down by a dozen of his fellow prisoners in that suffocating shit filled car. These were all military veterans, who nonetheless feared collective punishment should he escape.
This notion of collective responsibility and fallout seems to be pretty effective psychologically.
How many of your liberal anti gun relatives and friends could you trust if they figured an advantage would accrue to them by informing on you. Look who turned in Anne Frank …
DNW:
I agree with your points except the very last one. No one knows who turned in the Frank family. All is guesswork and supposition, basically. Please see this.
“We knows” how we would act.
The Germans had a long history of collective punishment (WWI Belgium) and more recently in Czeckoslovakia after the assissanition of Hyerdrich (early WWII) and in France (late WWII)in 1944.
There was an hour long program on WW2 TV (YouTube) about resistance in Poland. Resistance to the Nazis was not a simple clear cut endeavor.
But “we knows.”