Education as Resistance and Preservation of Identity

In the Warsaw ghetto, as well as in the ghettos of Kovno and Terezín (among other examples), there were committed and brave educators who made an effort to teach despite the terrible conditions. They also demonstrated exceptional dedication to the education and well-being of their students - which, according to Seymour Fox, should be one of the main characteristics of a teacher. Through creative methods appropriate to the extremely limited and dangerous situations in which they found themselves, these clandestine educators also provided encouragement and support to those who were most vulnerable. Their efforts included the use of games, artistic activities, music, and theater as educational tools. This brings to mind Israel Scheffler’s suggestion that “Jewish education should have the courage not only to reevaluate its directions but also to adapt whatever is worthwhile in the environment to its purposes, thus promoting the creative continuity of its civilization.”

A comparison of educational initiatives in the three ghettos shows that the educators in each case adopted different pedagogical approaches. In the Warsaw ghetto, Janusz Korczak focused on children's autonomy and rights. His philosophy of education starts with the educator: “Be yourself. Find your own path. Learn to know yourself before trying to know the children. Measure the limits of your capabilities before pointing out the rights and duties of children. Among all those that you must understand, educate, instruct, you are in first place: you must start with yourself.” Continuing from self-knowledge and self-respect to the proper manner of relating to students, Silverman comments, "True educators can read the character of their charges reliably and thus create and sustain a compassionate relationship toward them. Their understanding of their pupils also determines the proper boundaries of their relationship with them. Worthy educators relate to their pupils with respect.” In the Kovno ghetto, the emphasis was on academic education and the promotion of Jewish culture. In Terezín, art became a form of expression and resistance, and these values were expressed through creativity.

These three ghettos emerged and operated within different social and political contexts. The Warsaw ghetto was a center of armed resistance against the Nazis, which influenced the local educational and pedagogical approach. Kovno and Terezín had different experiences in terms of relations with the Nazis and the degree of oppression.

Another point to be taken into consideration is the available resources, which were different in each ghetto. Warsaw, being the largest, had a greater pool of resources and educational personnel compared to Kovno and Terezín. However, educators in all three sites were obviously extremely limited in terms of the educational materials, space, and conditions for both physical and emotional survival.

These similarities and differences reflect only a small part of the diversity of heroic clandestine educational efforts during the Holocaust and the adaptability of educators in the face of changing and challenging conditions. By studying testimonies of educational efforts in the ghettos, we can learn valuable lessons about the importance of education as a form of resistance and preservation of identity in times of oppression and crisis.

The commitment and bravery of the underground educators demonstrate the importance of teachers as key agents in Jewish Education, as emphasized in Fox's teachings: their dedication and personal sacrifice show how educators can significantly impact students' lives even in the most adverse circumstances. In Twersky’s words, “Teachers demonstrate their love of God through love of their students.”

The use of creative and adaptive methods in the ghettos exemplifies Fox's approach to fostering dynamic and relevant education: “A challenge for Jewish education in our day is to find contexts where formal and informal education are permeable to each other, where the intellectual, emotional and behavioral are cultivated together, deliberately and educationally.” These methods and strategies depend on the teachers' ability to adapt to both limitations and challenges, using limited resources in innovative ways.

In this sense, clandestine educators in the ghettos demonstrated an unparalleled commitment to teaching ethical and moral values. Korczak, for example, is notable for his emphasis on the importance of children's rights and mutual respect. The Kovno and Terezín cases highlight solidarity, peaceful resistance, and human dignity as fundamental values. Gringauz, commenting on the Kovno ghetto, writes: “Apart from this general social authority, there were also a whole series of organized groups with their respective authority in the ghetto. Even though many of these groups were concerned chiefly with saving their own members, nevertheless each one of them constituted an integral part of the organized Jewish community and participated as such in the administration of community life.”

Michael Rosenak writes: “All educated Jews have the desire, need and ability to link Jewish matters to wide vistas of reality and experience, those generally termed universal. Judaism appears to the educated Jew to be a holy or a valuable or an adequate vehicle for obligation and meaning, as both source and medium”. Clandestine educational efforts within the ghettos, therefore, can and should be considered acts of resistance since, through resistance, both teachers and students defied the restrictions imposed by the Nazis. They found ways to keep Jewish culture alive and to connect with their heritage amid adversity. In Fox’s words, “Jewish education involves not only thinking but feeling and doing.”

Bibliography and reading recommended

Avraham, T. Surviving the Holocaust: The Kovno Ghetto Diary.

Fox, S., Scheffler, I., & Marom, D., Visions of Jewish Education.

Frasier, A. M. S. Schooling in the Kovno Ghetto: Cultural reproduction as a form of defiance.

Gringauz, S. The Ghetto as an Experiment of Jewish Social Organization (Three Years of Kovno Ghetto).

Haring, U., Sorin, R., & Caltabiano, N. J. Living in the liminal space of dream and reality: Children’s drawings of the Holocaust.

Herman Kruk - Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies.

Korczak, J. Ghetto Diary.

Leshnoff, S. K. Friedl Dicker-Brandeis, Art of Holocaust Children, and the Progressive Movement in Education.

Megargee, G. P., & Dean, M. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos, 1933-1945, Volume II: Ghettos in German-Occupied Eastern Europe.

Michman, D. The emergence of Jewish ghettos during the Holocaust. Cambridge University Press.

Miller, H., Grant, L. D., & Pomson, A. International Handbook of Jewish Education. Springer.

Silverman, M. A Pedagogy of Humanist Moral Education: The Educational Thought of Janusz Korczak. Palgrave Macmillan.

Stevenson, D. Fireflies in the Dark: The Story of Friedl Dicker-Brandeis and the Children of Terezin.

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At the Summer Seminar on the Hebrew University Campus, we have the Shoah and Education course where we delve into this and other topics. Contact us for more information!