This study asks: Why does resistance take place in some situations but not others? What conditions facilitated the emergence of collective armed resistance? While current theories of social movement emergence argue that collective action occurs when groups of individuals have opportunity, resources, and a sense of efficacy, this study will make a contribution by examining resistance under conditions of extreme repression, limited resources, and great despair. This research will study Jewish victims of the Holocaust who are commonly portrayed as passive individuals. Yet well known cases of Jewish resistance such as the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising demonstrate that in at least some places, Jews did rise up against their oppressors. Jewish ghettos in Nazi-occupied Europe therefore provide a useful setting for an empirical study of the emergence of collective resistance under extreme circumstances. This project will make a contribution to the extant literature by examining an understudied context for collective action and use the results to develop new theoretical models. The investigator will conduct in-depth qualitative analysis and compare three strategically selected case studies: the Warsaw Ghetto (where collective Jewish resistance occurred), the Vilna Ghetto (where collective resistance was planned but not achieved), and the Lodz Ghetto (where collective resistance was never attempted). Data will include both primary and secondary sources, including transcripts from a random sample (N=120) of archived oral testimonies from survivors of each ghetto (40 from each ghetto). These testimonies are housed at the University of Southern California Shoah Foundation Institute. Oral testimony data will be analyzed using the qualitative software package NVivo.
The study?s broader impacts are both educational and policy-related. First, the project will help contribute to extant knowledge about collective action and contentious politics in general. Although the results are intended primarily for professional academic audiences, they may also be used in other educational settings (e.g., Holocaust education in public schools). In addition, to the extent that they are disseminated more widely (e.g., through the media), the findings can also have an impact on the general public?s understanding of the Holocaust, especially by helping to dispel the myth of Jewish passivity. Lastly, the findings will have relevance to contemporary cases of resistance such as armed insurgencies, prison revolts and urban riots.
