Women’s Protest on Rosenstrasse 2-4

It happened 54 years ago on February 27, 1943. Right in the middle of war-torn Berlin--only a few blocks away from important German government buildings--150 women demonstrated in front of the former Jewish Social Security building on Rose Street 2-4 shouting, "Give us back our husbands!" The day before, some 10,000 Jews working as forced laborers in Berlin’s weapons factories were arrested. As a special present for Hitler’s 54th birthday, Gestapo and SS units were trying the "cleanse" Berlin of its remaining Jews.

By 1943, only about 27,000 Jews were left who had been living in Berlin--many in hiding. Others, granted special "protection" for being married to Christians lived and worked in the open. But in February of that year, even those intermarried Jews were rounded up to be deported. What the Nazi authorities did not anticipate was that the non-Jewish spouses--at some point more than 400 women with their children--refused to budge from the front of the building where their husbands were being held. They yelled, shouted, protested and refused to go home at night, in spite of the bitter cold. Traffic had to be re-routed, police were called, and still the women remained. Even though the imprisoned spouses were not permitted to come to the windows of their cells, the shouts of their loved ones gave them courage and hope.

And within 10 days of continued protest, the most amazing thing happened. On March 6, 1943, the Nazi empire backed down--if only because of their concern for public opinion--and the Jews kept inside of Rosenstrasse 2-4 were released. Even some 25 Jewish prisoners already on their way to Auschwitz were returned to their wives in Berlin. Most of those reunited with their families showed obvious signs of torture and abuse. Several died soon after as a result of mistreatment. But the courage of the women during February 1943 saved some fortunate Jews and thus belied the self-pacifying myth that protests were impossible during the Nazi period.

Today, that building is long since gone. It was bombed out in 1945 and finally razed in 1967. When visiting Berlin in 1992, I stood on the barely covered green grounds of the former protest site. Not much could be seen. But today, 54 years later, there are some women alive who, as young brides and wives in 1943, dared to protest and demand the return of their loved ones. A book to be published soon by W. W. Norton & Company entitled Resistance of the Heart: Intermarriage and the Rosenstrasse Protest in Nazi Germany by Nathan Stoltzfus describes what happened and is worth reading. In an interview with the author published in the Chronicle for Higher Education a couple of months ago, Dr. Stoltzfus explained why he wrote this book, "Even in a closed police state, it was possible for individuals to make a huge difference."

Viktoria Hertling