Holocaust Resistors by Misael Hernandez

1. Resistance at University

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At Munich University in Munich, Germany, Professor Kurt Huber encouraged his students to revolt against Nazi ideology and often times taught the true horrors of what the Nazi party did.

2. Huber's Realization

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In the mid-1930s, to find employment he joined a Nazi newspaper, Deutsche Musikkultur, "The Culture of German Music", which is where he began to uncover the truth of Nazi beliefs. Huber openly spoke about the clear racist ideology hidden within German music.

3. Kurt Huber's Impact

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After the war, in 1946, Huber's former friend, Carl Orff was under investigation for Nazi collaboration. Orff stated that he was a friend of Kurt Huber and a former father of the White Roses, an anti-Nazi group based in Munich, Huber himself a member. The American agent took his story for truth and released him. The truth was, Orff lied about that, he had no involvement with Huber's resistance movement, he simply was worried of losing work and potentially even being executed.

4. Franz "Frank" Cohn

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Franz Cohn was born in Bresnau, Germany, which now resides in Wroclaw, Poland on August 2, 1925. When Cohn had entered the 3rd grade, he began seeing his favorite teacher wear a Nazi outfit with a swastika armband on the outfit, peers of Cohn joined the "Hitler Youth", wearing Nazi clothing. His friends all sang Nazi songs, but Frank could do none of this, his teacher telling him he couldn't on the simple basis of being Jewish.

5. An Attempt for Opportunity

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After Franz's Bar Mitzvah in 1938, his father, Martin Cohn left for America, looking to immigrate and sneak his family into the country. German gestapos came to the Cohn residency in Germany looking for Martin, the gestapos told the Cohns to tell Martin to head to their headquarters as soon as he returned home. Ruth Potlizter, Frank's mother was instructed to write Martin a letter regarding this topic, but she wrote him a letter vehemently urging him not to return ever again.

6. The Cohns Immigrate

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Ruth was looking for a tourist visa to enter the United States, and successfully bribed a German clerk to add Franz's name onto the visa so both of them could enter the States. Ruth Potlitzer bought two first-class tickets from Rotterdam to New York City. Ruth had a fear swelling in her stomach that immigration officers would find out Martin was in the U.S. already, which would force them straight back to Europe. Frank said in a interview that he vividly remembers his mother being afraid that border security was not going to allow them entry into America. To Ruth's relief, the officers found no flaws in her paperwork and Franz and she were allowed entry to America. After the events of Kristallnacht, President Franklin D. Roosevelt extended every visa of a German immigrant who was only coming a temporary visa, allowing them permanent residency in America.

7. Frank's Resistance

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Only a month after he turned 18, Frank was drafted by the U.S. Army to fight overseas in World War II. Only then was he officially granted U.S. citizenship. Franz walked Omaha Beach and saw the aftermath of the D-Day invasion of 1944. Franz was soon after sent to Belgium where, to the excitement of American soldiers, they found out Franz spoke German. Franz was then sent to Le Vesinet in France for an intelligence course. Frank fought in the Battle of the Bulge and as an interragator of Nazi war teams, representing the T-Force, 12th Army Group.

8. Life after his Service

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Franz returned to America unharmed physically, but mentally distraught after finding out that 11 of his extended family members, including his aunt, Else Lichtenstein, whom he loved dearly, had all been killed by Nazi forces. Cohn earned his undergraduate degree in Psychology and Education at the City College of New York. He then obtained a Masters in Police Administration from Michigan State University. Even after the war was over, Franz chose to serve in the military for 35 years, retiring as Chief of Staff in Washington, D.C. He married Pauline Brimberg in 1948, having one daughter, Laura. Pauline unfortunately lost her life in 2021 after an astounding 71 years of marriage with her husband. Frank passed in 2023, his speeches still played aloud to those who visit the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

9a. Song about Resistance

862578113 — 2025-04-09 23:45:06 UTC

Zog Nit Keynmol is a song based on the events of the uprising that Jewish residents in Warsaw had in the famous Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.

9b. Quotes from Resistors of the Holocaust

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"It was exactly a shoah (mass killing spree), because only in a shoah are babies brutally murdered out of pleasure, women, pregnant women, killed or raped, homes burned."

-Ruth Haran

"We're letting [Nazis] take us to our death like sheep to the slaughter! At least we could break out of the ghetto or at least die honorably, not as a stain on the face of history!"

-Władysław Szpilman, whose story was made into the 2002 film, The Pianist, as portrayed by Adrien Brody.

“Get out of the lecture rooms of the SS and the party bootlickers! What we seek is true learning and real freedom of opinion. No threat can frighten us, not even the closing of our institutions of higher learning. This is the struggle of every single one of us for our future, our freedom, and our honor.”

-Kurt Huber

9c. Interview with Frank Cohn

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An interview with Frank Cohn as he tells his story of interrogating Nazi soldiers.

10. Homosexual Resistance

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It was February of 1933 and the Nazi party began to crack down on bars that were made to "hook up" with a person of the same sex, predominantly male homosexual bars. One of the men the Nazi party stopped was Richard Grune, he was found to be at a gay bar and had a relationship with another man who was also apprehended, his name has never been revealed.

11. Grune's Accusation

862578113 — 2025-04-11 00:43:20 UTC

Grune was arrested for violation of Paragraph 175 of the German handbook which states, "A male who commits a sex offense with another male or allows himself to be used by another male for a sex offense shall be punished with imprisonment. Where a party was not yet twenty-one years of age at the time of the act, the court may in especially minor cases refrain from punishment." Grune was unfortunately arrested for a year's time then was sent to Flossenberg concentration camp for 5 years and was only allowed to leave due to American forces infiltrating Germany after D-Day.

12. Richard's Life after Escapism

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Through his resistance and perseverance, Richard Grune was liberated by American forces, unfortunately never being able to find his boyfriend ever again who was killed by Nazi forces. Richard went to live in Spain with his sister for many years, moving back to Kiel in the 1980s', passing away in Kiel in 1983.