Resistance of the Heart: Intermarriage and the Rosenstrasse Protest in Nazi Germany

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Summary: Resistance of the Heart
Review: A fascinating account of one of the most successful protests during the Nazi regime,spurred by the many couples who were intermarried Germans (one spouse Jewish, one not). When the Jewish partners in the marriage were taken away by the Germans, the remaining spouses reacted angrily, culminating in the Rosenstrasse protest of February 1943. This book is a very detailed and powerful look at the heart of a nation - and its peoples. The author interviewed survivors and looked at literally thousands of Nazi records that had never before been examined. I found this book to be very inspiring and couldn't help wondering: what if more people had protested the injustices of Hitler's regime even earlier- could the Holocaust actually have been prevented?

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Summary: Authenicity by interviews and research of primary sources
Review: Dr. Nathan Stoltzfus' "Resistance of the Heart" is one of the most authentic studies of the persecution of Jews during W.W.II by the younger generation of American scholars. It reminds me of Toland's book on Hitler and the Nazi movement in its insistance on direct sources to come as close to the "reality" of history as possible and avoid the deplorable illusions of "Hindsight Histiography". See my review on Marchione's "Consensus".
Rainulf A. Stelzmann, Pofessor emeritus, Univ. of South Florida

Rating:
Summary: Authenicity by interviews and research of primary sources
Review: Dr. Nathan Stotzfus' "Resistance of the Heart" is one of the most authentic studies of the persecution of Jews during W.W.II by the younger generation of American scholars. It reminds me of Toland's book on Hitler and the Nazi movement in its insistance on direct sources to come as close to the "reality" of history as possible.

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Summary: The Holocaust and Intermarriage
Review: How many times have we seen throughout history where women get infuriated by injustices? How many times have we seen women become tigresses when their children are threatened? How many times do we need to see throughout history that when a wrong is committed, if we were just to stand up in throngs and shout, ENOUGH!, we could stop the insanity. This book makes all the points...they saved their spouses. Why? Because they spoke out loudly and clearly. Where were the churches when this atrocity was going on? To their shame, they were too silent but for a few. Remember the old adage, "The squeaky wheel gets the oil." Never again allow this horror to happen, not to any peoples...not to any!

Wonderful book, and wonderful insight to spouses who loved their Jewish partners enough to risk their own lives to save those they loved...heroic!

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Summary: A MUST MUST READ
Review: Resistance of the Heart : Intermarriage and the Rosenstrasse Protest in Nazi Germany by Nathan Stoltzfus is a well written book about the unsuccessful attempt by the Nazi's to exterminate Jews who married Germans of the Christian faith. The fact that the attempt was unsuccessful and that the overwhelming majority of the intermarried Jews were never sent to the death camps and survived the war leaves one with a withering feeling of "what if."

The central thesis of the book is that Hitler and Goebbels worry about the reaction of the Christian spouses led them to refuse to forcibly remove the Jewish spouse. They instead resorted to social pressure to force a divorce, so that the Jewish spouse could then easily be sent to the death camps. The social pressure was unsuccessful not because it was not intense, but because the Nazi's failed to give sufficient consideration to the bond between the spouses and the German antipathy toward divorce.

A central part of the story focuses on the attempt to round up the intermarried Jews in Berlin for transport to the camps. After the round up, but before their transport, they were housed in a building on Rosenstrasse. When word of this got back to the Christian spouses they surrounded the building and refused to leave until their husband or wife was freed. Amazingly, the Nazi's who murdered millions of Jews, Poles, Gypsies and others let thier prisoners go free. Goebbels reasoned that it was better to not force a confrontation with Christian Germans.

What is clear is that the Nazis were extremely concerned about German public opinion and were willing even to ignore their plans for the final solution where it ran counter to the public opinion of even a small part of Germany's populace. The "what if" relates to what would have happened if the greater part of Germany populace had taken the lessons of the Rosenstrasse Protest and attempted to stop the final solution. Certainly the conventional wisdom that they would have been ignored, or worse, must be rethought. In fact, the Rosenstrasse Protest was not an isolated incident, and numerous successful protests altered Nazi behavior. If more Germans, or the Vatican, had learned this simple lesson maybe millions of person would not have perished in the gas chambers of the death camps. It certainly puts to rest the excuse that there was nothing that cold have been done.

The book is very well researched and written. It is well worth reading.