Research Symposium

BIO

Hello, my name is Madison Kessler, and I am a second year student here at FSU! I am majoring in International Affairs with an interest in Economics. I was born in Indiana but raised in Ocala, Florida for most of my life. My hobbies include reading, going on walks, and finding new thrift stores. When I leave FSU, I hope to secure a job in the field of homeland security or just in Washington DC in general.

A Protest to Remember

Abstract

Protest and civil disobedience is not remembered when it comes to looking back at German culture and identity during World War II and the Holocaust. There were very few instances of it remembered in written history that explain how some Germans fought back against the Nazi regime, but there are some historians who have dedicated their time to researching cases such as the Rosenstrasse Protest of 1943. The Rosenstrasse Protest was a fight back against the Nazis who incarcerated 2,000 Jewish men, which was led by their German, non-Jewish spouses. This is significant in retrospective because it showed that the German, or “Aryan,” identity was not a shared ideology of all German nationals. This project as well looks at why protest was not very common during the Third Reich, which can be concluded to heavy censorship in this era as the regime did not want to appear weak to its citizens and the world. It is important to remember protests like the Rosenstrasse Protest because it is a way to remember that not all German identity at the time was centered around persecuting Jews.

Keywords: Rosenstrasse, Resistance, World War 2, The Holocaust