JWST 240 Chapter Notes - Chapter reading: Abba Kovner, Sephardi Jews, Operation Torch
Document Summary
Jewish resistance of various kinds was more widespread than many people assume. At the time, germans wanted to show jews as weak, to highlight their own strength and portray jewish death as almost inevitable. Abba kovner write in vilna in january 1942 and talked about the shameful behaviour of jewish youth who gave into the temptation of hope instead of realizing there was no hope. Jews participated in all of the armies that fought and in the end defeated nazi germany: including the polish, french, Jews played a crucial role in gathering and transmitting intelligence that facilitated the 1942 allied landings codenamed operation torch. The largest number of jews served in the red army as regular soldiers and officers. Soviet jews faced additional dangers because germans singled them out for immediate killing. Germans were unprepared for sephardic jews who did not speak yiddish or look like the nazi image of a jew.