10/16/2026
"Never again is a wish. Resist is a call to action," said author Shulamit Reinharz, professor emerita of sociology at Brandeis University, during a lecture at NewBridge on the Charles about how resistance is key to Jewish survival.
"Resist injustice. One act of resistance that you don't do enables injustice to flourish. There is so much we can do, there is much we must do," she said.
Reinharz recently found cartons full of documents saved by her father, Max Michael Rothschild, that showed how Jews resisted during the Holocaust. Rothschild, a member of the French resistance, went to Holland in January 1939 after being released from the Buchenwald concentration camp. In July 1942, he went into hiding in the Netherlands. Reinharz tells his story in "Hiding in Holland: A Resistance Memoir."
Reinharz noted that the Dutch N**i party was the largest N**i group outside of Germany. The N**is and their Dutch collaborators used a variety of techniques to eliminate Dutch Jewry, including continuous restrictions and relocation orders, theft of Jewish assets, raids, the separation of Jews from non-Jews, and more.
"Jews were activists and resisters in the Netherlands," Reinharz said, stressing that Jews did not go like sheep to the slaughter. Examples of resistance included public gestures, mutual assistance in the concentration camps, confronting N**is in the ghettos, participating in Jewish resistance organizations, and hiding with the help of non-Jews. Writing was another important form of resistance, and her father left thousands of papers, including books and diaries, to create a record of what was happening.
Reinharz said resistance remains important today, and it can take many forms: speaking out against injustice, joining and supporting resistance organizations, and voting or running for office.
"We must be public, we must be proud, and we must be unafraid. There is much to learn from the past," she said.
