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Bri-Anna Lewis
UWRT 1103-009
Prof. Wertz-Orbaugh
24 Monday 2014
Unarmed and Dangerous
When I began my search on resistance in the Holocaust I wanted to do something
different than the typical resistance story. People rarely hear about the different types of
resistance in the Holocaust, normally historians just share what sounds the most heroic. One
hears of people banning together to fight back and actively attempting to harm or get back at the
Nazis, but what about the people who cannot do such things? The people who choose to show
their bravery in other ways? This is the story in which people should hear. A story of people
standing up for what they believe in and keeping their peace within themselves through these
trying times. Weapons are instruments used to fight back, the instruments that caught my eye just
happened to be those of spiritual creativity.
Singing is a form of expression that has been around for centuries helping us cope with
the harsh realities of everyday life. There is always a song in my heart which I why I can relate
to those who during the Holocaust kept a song in theirs. I was so happy to stumble upon this
article entitled No Raisins, No Almonds: Singing as Spiritual Resistance to the Holocaust
which was written by Eiyana R. Alder from the University of Maryland. In this article I found a
lot of information not only on why and where Jewish people sang but what they sang and how it
was created. The style in which this was written was very boring for me to read but once I got
past that and was able to grasp the information this article really resonated within me. It is
amazing how Somehow, in conditions of mental and physical torture and deprivation songs

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were continually written and sung (Alder 51). Not everyone was able to physically fight back,
this is when those people turned to spiritual resistance. There is a story about Jews from Warsaw
being sent to the Gas chambers. While inside they began singing Ani Maamin until breathe
was no longer in their bodies. Ani Maamin was taken from Maimonides Thirteen Articles of
Faith and says: I believe with complete faith in the coming of the Messiah, and even though he
may delay, nevertheless I anticipate every day that he will come. When word got out about this
occurrence it created a stir in the Jewish community, sort of a whisper of resistance if you will.
Singing makes people feel understood and connected. At times singing can even ease the mind
and help one get a hold of situations. Music brings people together just as much as groups do.
Youth Groups were formed to promote development for educational, social, and ideological
purposes within the Jewish community. In the Gordonya youth group hakhsharah, One of
Flams informants described her participation in it by saying:
During weekdays we sat together, and in the evenings we sang songs by the light of a
small burner. Every evening we learned a new song. The leader of all that was Arieh TalShir, of course. We sang in Hebrew without knowing the language that wellHe also
sang many songs in Yiddish, such as by mayn fenster shteyt oyvn vayse toybn tsvay
[Above my window, two doves are standing,] but I do not recall the end of the song. This
song is full of hope and romances, and this was what nourished us. Because of our
singing we could spiritually escape the ghetto.
I love this excerpt. My favorite line is and this was what nourished us. Because of our
singing we could spiritually escape the ghetto (Alder 55). For many people the Holocaust was
not only a physical battle but a spiritual one as well. Just as Slaves sang old hymns to keep them
at peace with all the madness going on around them, so did the Jews. They were able to resist the

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outer war surrounding them by not letting it consume them, they used things like songs to keep
their faith and to give them the strength to overcome such a gruesome way of life. A lot of the
songs that were sung had to be written or were revisions of other songs. Szmerke Kaczerginski
was known for leaving his partisan group after the war to begin touring the Displaced Persons
Camps to collect songs. He was a survivor of the Vilna Ghetto therefore he knew the importance
of songs in the Jewish community. He used his poetic ability to late go on and revise and revive
old Jewish songs. His efforts were greatly appreciated since the memoirs and testimonies of
survivors often refer to public and private singing (Alder 52). To further my research I decided
to look into a book that gave me a general overview of things, just to make sure my outlook on
resistance was correct. As I looked over Yehuda Bauers A History of the Holocaust something
stuck with me. In his final paragraph he states that:
The main expression of Jewish resistance could not be armed, could not be violent. There
was no arms; the nearby population was largely indifferent or hostile. Without arms,
those condemned to death resisted by maintaining morale, by refusing to starve to death,
by observing religious and national traditions. Armed resistance is a marginal comment
on the Holocaust but it is written in very large letters indeed (Bauer 277).
It is very important to note that resistance comes in all shapes and sizes. Not everyone has it in
them to harm another person or the strength to run off in the night. Even though armed resistance
gets the most advertising on paper, spiritual resistance is something that will be passed down
through families for years to come, spiritual resistance through song is a fight that will never
fade.

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After reading that article I decided to search for things along the line of expression and
spiritual resistance. I stumbled upon some art and even articles on writing and poetry. These
topics stuck with me and I was fortunate enough to find a book based on Spiritual Resistance
through artwork and an article on Yiddish and Polish Poetry in the Ghettos and Concentration
Camps. When reading the book by Frieda W. Aaron entitled Bearing the Unbearable I was
able to find so many poems that were heart wrenching and empowering. The poems, which were
unfortunately too long to include, really allowed the reader to feel as if they are in the situation
being described. One begins to feel the emotion of the writer and the feeling is overwhelming.
The author says how the act of writing a poem is an act of faith and goes on to say (Aaron
177):
Yet if the screams of the tortured are audible in the poet's room, is not his activity an
offense to human suffering? And if the next hour may bring his death and the destruction
of his manuscript, should the poet engage in such a pastime?
One thing that stood out to me was how seriously the writer views poetry and the rawness
of poetry. Especially in the hardships of the Holocaust, the writer believes that nothing should be
spared when addressing the severity of the Holocaust through words. When I opened Spiritual
Resistance by Miriam Novitch I noticed that this book covers artwork made pre-war, during the
Holocaust, and after the Holocaust. All the artwork is from the Ghetto Fighters Museum and is
the epitome of self-expression. As I flipped through the book I noticed a drawing by Aldo Carpri
de Resmini. This drawing held my attention for quite a while as I analyzed every piece of it, I
could not shake this image, and I knew I had to speak on it. Aldo Carpri de Resmini always
signed his works as Aldo Carpri, he was a master of Italian art who was born in Milan in the year
1886. He studied art at the Bereirah Art Academy where he later became a professor at the age of

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twenty-six (Novitch 64). Capri painted a series of paintings entitled The Hurricane Comes
which showed how not only he viewed the horrors of the new found war but also how he felt
other did. He was later arrested by the Fascist police in 1944 due to his other drawings, paintings
and his militant spirit. He was deported to the Mauthausen camp and stayed there until liberation
(Novitch 64). The name of the drawing I saw in the book by Aldo Carpri is titled The Courtyard
of the Railway Station, Block 31. This drawing shows frail and neglected bodies laid out in the
courtyard of the railway station. On one side of the wall one sees people sitting and waiting
probably for the cattle carts I assume. While they look malnourished, they do look alive unlike

the people laid out on the other side of the make shift wall. Some appear to be underneath a
blanket as if they died sleeping in the cold, others are drawn with arms wrapped around one
another, and then there are bodies that seem to have been just thrown on top. This drawing also
shows people inside the house looking afraid as other bodies spill out of the back door. This
drawing to me personally is very powerful and dangerous. This is why I see it as a valid form of

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resistance. If this painting were to get out and reach other countries, perhaps even a newspaper it
could do damage. Even though paintings like Aldo Capris were not virally spread, they were
viewed by people within the camp at the time and outside the camps after the fact. Seeing
paintings like this leads me to believe that no one could be at peace with this type of situation.
This is why he drew this things, not only to cope but to find a common link with the viewer to
make the image everlasting. To make the image so real and stirring that one cannot let the events
depicted within the image to continue to go on. The result of this everlasting imageResistance.
It is hard to imagine what one has never truly experienced. There is a factor of realism
within the imagined thought which will be vacant. Unless there is a common link. Our common
link in which I feel gives spiritual resistance its power is emotion. When hearing a sad song or an
uplifting fight song one feels moved. One relays back to the feeling they felt when theyve
experienced something similar within the common link. When someone looks at a painting or
drawing or even reads poetry, especially one made by a person who has experienced what they
are depicting, one cannot help but be engulfed in the common link of emotion. Emotion stirs
people and puts things in motion. It may not be the sharpest weapon a person wishing to resist
may choose but it will definitely make a difference.

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Works Cited
Aaron, Frieda W. Bearing the Unbearable Yiddish and Polish Poetry in the Ghettos and
Concentration Camps. Albany, N.Y.: State U of New York, 1990. Print.
Adler, Eliyana R. "No Raisins, No Almonds: Singing As Spiritual Resistance to the Holocaust."
Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies 24.4 (2006): 50-66. Historical
Abstracts. Web. 16 Nov. 2014.
Bauer, Yehuda, and Nili Keren. A History of the Holocaust. New York: F. Watts, 1982. Print.
"Ghetto Fighters House Archives." IDEA - ALM. 1 Jan. 1945. Web. 22 Nov. 2014.
<http://infocenters.co.il/gfh/notebook.asp?lang=ENG&dlang=ENG&module=search&pa
ge=list&rsvr=6&param=global2@@4@@3@@6@@2@@15@@5@@7@@1@@16@
@14globalrecordsY!35;COMPNO@AENGidhappl1_4828_56651520134@global0dts124560multimedia/Art/931.jpgaldo@@n0mainW
ORDz3zaldo&param2=10global&site=gfh>.
Novitch, Miriam. Spiritual Resistance: Art from Concentration Camps, 1940-1945: A Selection
of Drawings and Paintings from the Collection of Kibbutz Lohamei Haghetaot, Israel.
New York: Union of American Hebrew Congregations, 1981. Print.