Nitzotz: The Spark of Resistance in Kovno Ghetto and Dachau-Kaufering Concentration Camp (Religion, Theology and the Holocaust)

Under the brutal conditions of the Dachau-Kaufering concentration camp, a handful of young Jews resolved to resist their Nazi oppressors. Their weapons were their words. After the Soviet occupation of Kovno, the members of Irgun Brith Zion circulated an underground journal, Nitzotz (Spark), in which they debated Zionist politics and laid plans for postwar settlement in Palestine. When the Kovno Ghetto was destroyed, several contributors to Nitzotz were deported to the German interior, where they were constcripted to slave labor in the satellite camps of Dachau. Against all odds, they did not lay down their pens.Nitzotz is the only known Hebrew-language publication to have appeared consistently throughout the Nazi occupation anywhere in Europe. Its authors believed that their intellectual defiance would insulate them against the dehumanizing cruelty of the concentration camp and equip them to lead the postwar effort for the physical and spiritual regeneration of European Jewry. In Nitzotz: The Spark of Resistance in Kovno Ghetto and Dachau-Kaufering Concentration Camp, Laura M. Weinrib presents this remarkable document to English readers for the first time. Along with a translation of the five remaining Dachau-Kaufering issues, the book includes an extensive critical introduction. Nitotz is a tribute to the inspiring faith of those struggling for survival.

Publisher:

Syracuse University Press

Pages:

216

Date Published:

2009-11-30