In 1943 Hundreds of German Women Saved Their Jewish Husbands From Death Camps: Rosenstrasse Protest

[appalachiablue]

"In 1943, hundreds of German women saved their Jewish husbands from death camps." The Rosenstrasse protest was the only one of its kind. Timeline, May 22, 2017. ~ Resistance and Non Violent Civil Disobedience.

The Nazis were waiting until they won the war to deport the rest of the German Jews, namely the ones who were married to Aryan women. Then they jumped the gun, and ended up facing the only major act of public protest by Germans throughout the entire war.
Before dawn on February 27, 1943, the Gestapo pulled Jews from their homes and jobs, captured them off the streets, and stuffed them into trucks headed for various detention centers throughout Berlin. Most of these people were Jewish men who were married to “Aryan” women, or the male children of these so called inter-marriages (called mischlinge, or mixed blood).

According to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, some 2,000 of these people were transported and held at a local Jewish community center on Rosenstrasse (Rose Street). There, police planned to check their papers and determine whether the prisoners would be deported — for labor camps or extermination camps, no one really knew. Family members, wives, mothers, and children panicked. Initially, they had no idea where their men were being detained, and didn’t even know if they would ever return.

Adding to the anxiety was operation Fabrik-Aktion (Factory Action), a German move in early March that rounded up 11,000 Jews and shipped them to Auschwitz. The Gestapo never intended to send mischlinge Jews to Auschwitz, but rather to keep “exempted” Jews inside the Reich borders, at forced labor camps. But that didn’t matter.

In short order, word spread among the “mixed” families that their relatives were being held at the Rosenstrasse center. Inside, the men had very little food and inadequate sanitary facilities. Slowly, a crowd amassed, mostly of wives and mothers hoping to learn more about who was inside. Frustrated by the lack of information, they stayed day after day in the freezing temperatures. They chanted, “Give us our husbands back.”...

Read More, https://timeline.com/rosenstrasse-protest-world-war-2-ce3c2bfb3033

- The Rosenstrasse Demonstration, 1943, USHMM
https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/the-rosenstrasse-demonstration-1943

[mitch96]

1. "the Gestapo pulled Jews and captured them off the streets, and stuffed them in trucks..."

Hummm sounds like Portland, eh? NEVER AGAIN....
m

[Behind the Aegis]

2. Interesting you posted this awhile back.

I glanced over it. It was a part of WWII history related to my people I didn't know, then, I started, An Underground Life: Memoirs of a Gay Jew in Nazi Berlin. The other night, I was on chapter 7 (I think), and this event, the Rosenstrasse Protest, was mentioned. The author was giving first person testimony as to what happened and as I listened to it, I remembered this post. He said there were also a fair amount of men involved too. At one point, the Gestapo showed up with machine guns and pointed them at the crowd, but decided against using them because Berlin had just been heavily bombed (or something along those lines) and they didn't want to upset the populace even more than they already were.

I am almost finished with the book, it is interesting and, also, quite saucy. He discusses the number of people who helped because it was the right thing, but many were in it for the money. I just finished one part which made me sick to my stomach. The author had one contact, for quite a price, would smuggle Jews out of Germany to neutral Switzerland by placing them in crates that resembled crates for shipping arms. Turns out, the man was only half doing this. If he saw a list with the names of people he knew to be full Jews and part of the resistance, he would set up transport, but the people didn't end up in Switzerland, they ended up in the concentration camp, Sachsenhausen!

He also discussed one of the most notorious Jewish "Jew hunters", Sarah something-or-another, and I know I saw an article here mentioning her name and now I can't find it. It was just another story I hadn't heard, and now I am reading a book from a first person perspective. Interesting.

[appalachiablue]

3. There was interesting article maybe BBC about Jews who

endured the war period in hiding in Berlin, for years. One woman lived in an outdoor shed, others in homes, all of it incredible. I wish I'd saved that article.

Until reading about Oradour sur Glane in France I didn't realize how many French villagers hid refugees in barns, and on their property for a long while, the same in Italy and others fleeing who walked miles through the mountains to get to Switzerland.

The stories of children who survived train rides by being pushed out the narrow, high window by parents and others imprisoned in camps who escaped and were aided by locals are so amazing.

I don't doubt there were many unscrupulous characters who profited from the war in many ways including transporting people at risk in German occupied areas. I googled, 'Sarah jew hunter' and only came up with this person, Stella Kubler of Berlin who was a collaborator and more. Maybe not who you're thinking of, but was she was really sick.. ..https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stella_K%C3%BCbler

Shipping people in crates to Sachsenhausen instead of Switzerland, mind blowing. So much went on during that 6-10+ year nightmare period in Europe.

You probably know of the famous psycopath killer Frenchman, Dr. Marcel Petiot, who was into all kinds of criminality since his youth and during the war in Paris. Highly intelligent, an expert liar, a drug addict & he peformed abortions for $. He also worked with local low lifes & conned people who needed to get out of France, including wealthy Jews.

Petiot took their money and posessions and told them that to depart for Argentina they first needed an inoculation shot. But he gave them cyanide instead and buried many of them on the property of his Paris home. The authorities, initially the Gestapo I think finally caught up with him and he lied pursuasively throughout interrogation and the sensational trial. A real sicko, he was found guilty and executed c. 1946.
https://the-line-up.com/the-perfect-psychopath-dr-petiots-heinous-crimes-during-world-war-ii

[JudyM]

4. The depravity of some people.

My grandmother, who stowed away to escape from Ukrainian pogroms, felt that hostility to Jews is nearly universal. Seeing what has crawled out from under trump’s rock has been a genuine eye opener. So many are brimming with hate. It’s not such a stretch to see them acting as the depraved ones did in WWII

[appalachiablue]

5. Agree the evil and harm of some people is so disturbing,

and the mass persecution that continues through the ages and across cultures is disheartening- for Jews, widows, the disabled, elders, the vulnerable and others.

But fortunately there are always empathic, caring people who resist group think and harassment, even if they pay a price. We humans are indeed animals that often follow the pack and hierarchy to cast out 'others.'

It's related to a primitive herd 'survivial mechanism' in some ways I guess. *The Hate Level here now, and even other areas incl. Europe I'd rate about a 3, on a scale of 5. It's alarming.

[JudyM]

6. That's how I see it, too.

It seems the US experiment is proving that extending free speech protections to outright lies can destroy a healthy democracy. If we could restrict the faux news hate mongering and lying distortions the country would be in a much different place, IMO. The numbers would be far different and the trump herd wouldn’t be so widespread.