Nitzotz: The Spark of Resistance in Kovno Ghetto and Dachau-Kaufering Concentration Camp

3. Reading Nitzotz

48 3 ReadingNitzotz Nitzotz began as one of the many projects undertaken by the members of Irgun Brith Zion. In the ghetto, IBZ had organized youth programs on issues ranging from plant life to politics in order to solicit broad-based participation . The higher ranks of the organization had discussed a variety of possibilities for physical resistance and uprising. They had assisted a number of members in escaping the ghetto to fight from the outside. In DachauKaufering , however, the relative autonomy that the Jews had enjoyed in Kovno was snatched away. IBZ conducted meetings of members and supporters in the camp. But it soon became clear that the publication of Nitzotz, once part of a multifaceted campaign to free Kovno Jewry from Nazi rule and unite the ghetto youth in support of the Zionist cause, would be the organization’s primary mode of resistance within the camp. The authors invested their writing for Nitzotz with all the urgency of survival; it is against this backdrop that the issues should be read and understood. Writing and Resistance How did the authors of Nitzotz find the will to continue writing under the appalling conditions of Dachau-Kaufering? What motivated them to risk their lives to continue their Zionist work? The enforced silence of the prisoners was central to the Nazi effort to quash defiance and hope. That the authors nonetheless put pen to paper was a weighty act of resistance. One IBZ veteran and contributor to Nitzotz recalls, “The Germans had forbidden everything. And so we had to do something.”1 The authors’ defiance was emblazoned on the first page of every issue. To the right of the title and above the centered insistence, “Our hope is not yet lost,” the journal is defined by Reading Nitzotz . 49 its authors as the “Mouthpiece” of IBZ and the Association of National Youth. It is precisely as a mouthpiece that Nitzotz offered hope for survival. The authors of Nitzotz never explicitly explained their decision to continue writing in Dachau-Kaufering—whether they turned to writing as their most powerful tool of resistance or if writing functioned as a default when armed revolt was impossible.2 At least one author, Chaim Rosenberg, believed that physical resistance would be futile. “The defense policy we managed to conduct in the ghetto ended in dreadful failure,” he argued. Even had it been possible to mobilize the residents of Dachau-Kaufering to armed resistance, it is unclear whether the authors of Nitzotz would have chosen to do so. The members of IBZ felt a sense of obligation toward European Jewry as a whole. They considered it their duty to prepare the survivors for settlement in Palestine, and they believed they could do so effectively within the concentration camp. According to Rosenberg, physical freedom was merely a tool in the Zionist struggle. “Only a few of us, indeed the best of us, remained in their hiding places,” he recounted. “Did they succeed in hiding until the fury passed?” he wondered. “Have they survived?” And finally, crucially: “Are they continuing our Zionist work? Because continuing our national work is the most important thing— ‘nevertheless and despite everything.’”3 The articles in Nitzotz evince a sincere belief that planning for the future, through Zionist debate and the circulation of Nitzotz, was the most important means of maintaining Jewish identity in the camp and preserving a Jewish core for settlement of Palestine. This attitude was consonant with the philosophy of most Zionist youth movements before the Second World War. During the interwar period, the pioneering youth had disavowed participation in the ordinary political life of the Jewish community on the theory that present engagement would distract participants from the Zionist cause.4 Some youth movements, like those in the Warsaw ghetto, gradually abandoned this principle as the extent of the Nazi destruction became evident.5 But in Dachau-Kaufering, as in Kovno, the focus of IBZ was always future settlement in Eretz Israel. In articles outlining the tasks of the members in preparation for liberation, uprising is nowhere considered.6 The authors insisted that participation in Nitzotz would entitle the members of IBZ to account proudly for their activity during the war. 50 . The Voice of Resistance Although the authors of Nitzotz did not dwell on their own physical inaction, they did criticize the failure of Europe and the United States to employ military force against Hitler promptly. They distinguished the...