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In
Hope and Honor, Rachel L. Einwonher illustrates the Jewish struggle for survival during the Holocaust and the dangers in attempting resistance under unimaginable conditions. She draws on sources produced both by survivors and those who perished to show how Jews living under Nazi occupation in the ghettos of Warsaw, Vilna, and Lodz reached decisions about resistance. Employing social science theory on collective action and social movements, Einwohner shows that decisions about resistance rested on Jews' assessments of the threats facing them, and ironically, resistance took place only once people believed that there was no hope for survival.
List of contents
- Preface
- Timeline of Important Events
- Chapter 1: Studying Jewish Resistance
- Chapter 2: Understanding Resistance: Theoretical Underpinnings
- Chapter 3: Fighting for Honor in the Warsaw Ghetto
- Chapter 4: Competing Visions in the Vilna Ghetto
- Chapter 5: Hope and Hunger in the Lódz Ghetto
- Chapter 6: Resistance: Past, Present, and Future
- Appendix: Data Sources
- References
- Notes
- Index
About the author
Rachel L. Einwohner is Professor of Sociology and (by courtesy) Political Science at Purdue University, where she is also a faculty affiliate in Jewish Studies. Her research focuses on the dynamics of protest and resistance. Her work asks questions related to protest emergence and effectiveness, the role of gender and other identities in protest dynamics, protesters' sense of efficacy, and the creation of solidarity in diverse movements. She has explored these topics with studies of a wide variety of cases, including the U.S. animal rights movement, the 2017 Women's March, and Jewish resistance during the Holocaust. She is also part of an interdisciplinary research team that is using Twitter data to examine diversity and inclusion in contemporary social movements. She has also co-edited two volumes: The Oxford Handbook of U.S. Women's Social Movement Activism and Identity Work in Social Movements.
Summary
A powerful account of Jewish resistence in Nazi-occupied Europe and why such resistance was so remarkable.
Most popular accounts of the Holocaust typically cast Jewish victims as meek and ask, "Why didn't Jews resist?" But we know now that Jews did resist, staging armed uprisings in ghettos and camps throughout Nazi-occupied Europe. In Hope and Honor, Rachel L. Einwohner illustrates the dangers in attempting resistance under unimaginable conditions and shows how remarkable such resistance was. She draws on oral testimonies, published and unpublished diaries and memoirs, and other written materials produced both by survivors and those who perished to show how Jews living under Nazi occupation in the ghettos of Warsaw, Vilna, and Lódz reached decisions about resistance. Using methods of comparative-historical sociology, Einwohner shows that decisions about resistance rested on Jews' assessments of the threats facing them, and somewhat ironically, armed resistance took place only once activists reached the critical conclusion that they had no hope for survival. Rather than ask the typical question of why Jews generally didn't resist, this powerful account of Jewish resistance seeks to explain why they resisted at all when there was no hope for success, and they faced almost certain death.
Additional text
Recommended. General readers through graduate students.
