A story of teacher resistance and defiance

For many years, I have taught Elie Wiesel’s powerful and heartbreaking memoir Night to my high school seniors. Although some educators teach the book in earlier grades due to its straightforward language and young narrator, I am convinced that 17-18 year-olds are uniquely prepared to understand and absorb the incredible power of the book, which narrates Wiesel’s firsthand experience as a teenager during the Holocaust. Throughout our reading, I emphasize the ways that first person narratives can help to shape our understanding of history and how this narrative, in particular, has the power to land in our hearts in a way that very few books do.

After we read the book, I assign my students an inquiry project, for which I invite them to explore a question of their own device. For this project, I urge them to access their own curiosity and to research something they are left wondering about after reading this book. I set very few limits on what they can explore and emphasize that their projects can focus on any aspect of the Holocaust, WWII or anything in the world that was or is connected to this dark time in human history. This year, one student explored how WWII impacted Major League Baseball. Another student investigated the medical research conducted in various concentration camps, and another, the terrible sexual abuse that occurred. One student wrote about genocide, making connections between the Holocaust and the current situation in Gaza. Another explored recent upticks in anti-Semitism in the U.S. and another, the ways that anti-Semitic and Islamophobic hate crimes in the U.S. are often sparked by events in other parts of the world.

More than any other question, this year, students were extremely interested in the question of how Hitler rose to power. They asked their questions in various ways, but most boiled it down to this: How did this evil man convince millions of ordinary citizens to believe and act on his hateful rhetoric? Their essays identified key tools Hitler used to rise to power: propaganda, censorship, nationalism, expansionism, the silencing of the media, the scapegoating and elimination of specific ethnic and religious groups and the use of schools and other institutions to promote Nazi ideology.

As a teacher, it is specifically heartbreaking to think that schools—and, yes, teachers—were instruments of Nazification in Germany and throughout Europe and I have always been left wondering how exactly that happened. Did teachers simply accept, without question, the banning of books whose ideas ran counter to Nazi tropes and the removal of accurate history from their textbooks? Did they question their mandatory membership in the Nazi Teachers Union and their oath of loyalty to Hitler as their Führer? Did they flinch when they were required to teach “theories” of racial disparities and the idea of eugenics as a vehicle to racial purity and superiority? Did they agree to participate in the scapegoating—and sometimes violent removal—of Jewish children from their classrooms? Or, did they simply fall into line because they were afraid to lose their jobs? Or, their freedom?

And, really, what I’m most interested in here and what I’ve chosen to do my own little inquiry project about is: Were there teachers who resisted? And, if so, what exactly did they do? And, were their actions effective?

Although a shockingly large number of teachers throughout Germany and other Nazi-occupied countries embraced and perpetuated the racist ideas of the Nazi party, it turns out there are many compelling stories of individual and collective acts of resistance during the holocaust. There are well-documented cases of teachers—like Johan van Hulst—who singularly saved more than 600 Jewish children and others like Irene Sendler and Ann Essinger, who used their positions as teachers to aid in the escape of thousands of children. A story that I have just learned about, though, is the story of the Norwegian Teacher resistance and for many reasons, it feels especially important to share right now.

Most of the following information came from the Zinn Education Project and from an article published by The Global Nonviolent Data Base, a project at Swarthmore College devoted to providing free access to information about hundreds of cases of nonviolent action for learning and for citizen action.

The story:

Norway was invaded by the Nazis in April of 1940 and within two months, the Nazis had crushed Norwegian military resistance and installed a puppet government and a fascist Minister-President. The newly installed Minister-President, Vidkun Quisling, wished to create a Corporative State, in which the entire society and all its institutions were devoted to the advancement of fascist goals. To that end, he attempted to transform the national education system. The first thing he did was require all teachers to join the newly formed Norwegian Teachers Union, which was controlled by the occupying forces. Almost immediately, teachers resisted and organized and in a matter of only a few weeks, between 8,000-10,000 teachers sent letters articulating their refusal to join. This coordinated act of resistance was very effective and created panic in the new government, resulting in all schools being closed for an entire month. During this time, parents, understandably, became agitated and enraged at the government and wrote over 200, 000 letters in support of teachers. In the meantime, teachers continued to hold their classes in private, defying government orders. As a show of strength and solidarity, teachers and students began to wear paper clip pins on their lapels—a symbol used many times since to signal the power of collective action and solidarity.

As the resistance became more organized and teachers refused to adopt the Nazi curriculum being foisted upon them, Quisling ordered 1,000 male teachers to be arrested and jailed. It was reported that teachers suffered unspeakable treatment and inhumane conditions at the hands of their Nazi captors during this time, but they held fast. All the while, underground organizations raised money to pay their salaries and, without exception, the teachers refused to give in. Months went by and the government continued to escalate its response, sending 499 teachers to a concentration camp near Kirkenes, in the artic. When news of this action was leaked, crowds of students and farmers gathered along the tracks to sing and offer food as the train passed. During their captivity, teachers used their intellect and resilience to survive, creating a choir and various forums for educational discussions and lectures. Despite their solidarity and optimism, one teacher died during this time and a number fell ill or were injured due to the brutal conditions.

A month after their arrival in Kirkenes, word came that the occupation government’s Church and Education Department had given up on creating a fascist teachers’ organization. Eventually it became clear to Quisling that while the approaching winter might force the teachers to capitulate, he would lose whatever legitimacy he had left in the eyes of the population. By November of 1942, the teachers were all released from the concentration camp and most returned to their positions.

Perhaps it was the strong Norwegian pride, or maybe the teachers’ fortitude and their resolve to stand together against fascism, but at the end of the day, the people of Norway had solidified into a resistance movement that successfully defended their schools from incorporation into a fascist state. The people would continue to give Quisling so much difficulty that he was ultimately forced to give up on his idea of the Corporative State altogether. In essence, the Norwegian citizens, led in large part by its teachers, prevailed against fascism during the Nazi occupation.

* * * * *

Although these events may seem to belong to a different time and place, they highlight the power of ordinary citizens throughout history—in this case, teachers—to fight against fascism and hatred, even at great personal cost. They also make me wonder what I would do if something like this were to happen in my country.

References:

https://www.zinnedproject.org/news/tdih/norwegian-teachers-resistance/

https://nvdatabase.swarthmore.edu/content/norwegian-teachers-resist-nazi-takeover
education-1942

https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/nazi-propaganda-and-censorship

https://exhibitions.ushmm.org/some-were-neighbors/teachers/teachers-intro

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-43569049

https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/the-role-of-academics-and-teachers

https://hechingerreport.org/teachers-struggle-to-teach-the-holocaust-without-running-afoul-of-new-divisive-concepts-rules/