In Dave Kopel’s Aiming for Liberty: The Past, Present, And Future of Freedom and Self-Defense
Although there is a widespread myth that Jews in the Holocaust were passive, they were actually more active than any other conquered people. In 1942-43, Jews constituted half of  all the partisans in Poland. Overall, about thirty thousand Jewish partisans fought in Eastern Europe. There were armed revolts in over forty different ghettos, mostly in Eastern Poland. […]
One of the great centers of resistance was Vilna, Lithuania, which before the Nazi conquest had been an outstanding center of Jewish learning, compared by some to Jerusalem.
Plans for resistance began in January 1942. The Jews’ only weapons were smuggled in from nearby German arms factories where the Jews performed slave labor. Hopeful of liberation by the Russian army, many of the Vilna Jews did not support the partisans. Partisan resistance postponed by three weeks the German plans to transport all the inhabitants of the Vilna ghetto to death camps[…]
Most of us have heard about the uprising in the Warsaw Ghettos, but it’s not widely known just how broad the Jewish resistance to the Nazi’s “Final Solution” really was. This story is at least now being told in a small part by Hollywood, but it’s not a part of history most people know about, and that’s a shame.
I got Defiance on Netflix. Good flick.
I disagree; I think the movie was filled with Hollywood’s normal moral relativism, where the main character didn’t want to kill Nazis because somehow that makes him as bad as they are. It’s an immoral message and it’s supposed to be the “religious view.” Not to mention they made the camp into a socialist commune, and then downplay the fact that the setup is contributing to everyone almost starving, and villifying those who wish to consume the fruits of their own labors.
Excellent film staring two of my favourite rifles!
I liked it because it was full of Moisins and Mausers. The commies were a given but yes, the Utopian commune crap was a bit much.
Some folks laugh, but the Vilna resistance was one reason (long before defiance came out) that I became an NRA certified instructor. It is simply better for society that we have more (for any value of “more”) responsible adults able to enjoy the shooting sports and shoot proficiently. That is a protection for minorities that we need.
And there’s nothing more disheartening to this white gentile than 1-having to explain this (-my- high school history grades were to embarrassing to type here and I “get it”.) and 2- seeing the disbelief in the eyes of my friends. Some people today react to the logic of individual empowerment with a look of dread, and that is frightening. -Boyd Kneeland
http://www.nraila.org/ActionCenter/GetInvolvedLocally/
http://www.hrahq.org/education/training/find.asp
Yizkor. Lo Od Pa’am
It’s also worth it to keep in mind that it took the Germans slightly longer to crush the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising than it did to initially conquer “all” of Poland in September/October ’39. (Or, significantly longer, if you use the January ’43 start date for the Uprising.)