Resistance of the Heart: Intermarriage and the Rosenstrasse Protest in Nazi GermanyIn February 1943, the Nazis began a final roundup of German Jews. The Gestapo swiftly arrested approximately 10,000 Jews remaining in Berlin. Most of them died within days in the gas chambers of Auschwitz. Two thousand of those Jews, however, were locked into a temporary collection center on a street called Rosenstrasse, in the heart of Berlin. These two thousand had non-Jewish, German husbands, wives, and children. As news of the huge arrest spread throughout the city, hundreds of Gentile spouses, mostly women, hurried to the Rosenstrasse in protest. A chant broke out, "Give us back our husbands." The protest lasted a week. Repeatedly, the Berlin police and uniformed SS scattered the women with threats to shoot them down. Again and again, the women regrouped and advanced in solidarity until the Gestapo backed down and freed their loved ones. Who were these intermarried Germans who dared to disobey history's most ruthless regime? Why did they choose to suffer the stigmas of intermarriage? What motivated them to risk their lives? And why did Hitler and Goebbels give in to the protesters and release two thousand Jews? If more Germans had protested, might the Holocaust have been slowed or even stopped? Resistance of the Heart is a powerful response to these questions and events. While charting the lives of intermarried couples in the context of Nazi persecution and social harassment, the history of the Rosenstrasse protest demonstrates the courage - and compromise - of self-protective resistance. Using interviews with survivors and thousands of Nazi records never before examined in detail, Nathan Stoltzfus has reconstructed a precise, intelligent, and inspiring story. |
Contents
Hitlers Theory of Power | 3 |
Stories of JewishGerman Courtship | 17 |
The Politics of Race Sex and Marriage | 41 |
Courage and Intermarriage | 50 |
Mischlinge A Particularly Unpleasant Occurrence | 57 |
Society versus Law GermanJewish Families and Social Restraints on Hitler | 65 |
Society and Law GermanJewish Families and German Collaboration with Hitler | 76 |
Kristallnacht Intermarriages and the Lessns of Pogrom | 98 |
The Price of Compliance and the Destruction of Jews | 162 |
Plans to Clear the Reich of Jews and the Obstacles of Women and Total War | 192 |
Courageous Women of Rosentrasse | 209 |
Protest Rescue and Resistance | 258 |
EPILOGUE | 279 |
NOTES ON SOURCES AND DISCOVERY | 289 |
ENDNOTES | 299 |
BIBLIOGRAPHY | 355 |
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Resistance of the Heart: Intermarriage and the Rosenstrasse Protest in Nazi ... Nathan Stoltzfus No preview available - 1996 |
Common terms and phrases
Abrahamsohn Alois Brunner anti-Semitism April arrested Aryan August Auschwitz BA Potsdam began Berlin Gestapo Berlin Jews Bovensiepen Trial Brunner camps Catholic Central Organization Charlotte Israel church decree divorce Eichmann Elsa Eppstein European Jews Euthanasia father Final Roundup Final Solution force Führer Gad Beck Geltungsjuden German Jews German women Germans married Gestapo Goebbels Goebbels's Goldberg Grodka Günter Gutterer Hilberg Himmler Hitler Holzer husband ideology Interior Ministry intermarried couples intermarried Germans Interview Jewish Community Jewish leaders Jewish-German Jews and Mischlinge Juden Julius Julius's Kristallnacht labor lived Lösener March marriage married Jews married to Jews military Minister Mischling mother Nazi Germany Nazi party Nazism never Nuremberg Laws partners person police political popular privileged intermarriages Propaganda Ministry racial regime regime's released resistance Rosenstrasse Protest RSHA Rudi Rudi's Star of David street Third Reich told unrest Wally wanted wear the Star Werner wrote