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The Nazis would have embraced these elite Germans — nevertheless, they resisted
The Traitors Circle : The True Story of a Secret Resistance Network in Nazi Germany—and the Spy Who Betrayed Them
By Jonathan Freedland
Harper, 480 pages, $26
Sometimes resistance is just mindfully walking around the streets of Berlin with shopping bags in both hands so that you have a reason not to give the Heil Hitler salute. As Jonathan Freedland told the audience at a live taping of John Heileman’s Impolitic podcast, that was the practice of Countess Lagi von Ballestrem — one of the two countesses in the “Traitors Circle” that gives his new book its title. Though members of the circle were involved in more significant opposition to the Nazi regime, this small, practical, personal act of defiance sings to us at our own moment of mounting authoritarianism.
Following on from his 2022 book, The Escape Artist, which traced the story of the first and only Jewish prisoners to escape from Auschwitz through their pre-War lives, capture and imprisonment, flight and depressingly unsuccessful attempts to convince Jewish and wartime governments to take action, Freedland turns his attention to a tea party. At roughly the same time as the events of his other book, these upper-class non-Jews in Berlin met regularly for companionship, dissent and mild subversion. It’s an entirely different form of resistance from Rudolf Vrba’s heroic escape, but one that speaks more directly to our time.
Freedland and his researcher Jonathan Cummings, were tipped off to the existence of this previously little-known coterie of “traitors” by the transcript of a speech from Heinrich Himmler to high-ranking Nazis in August 1944. He was referring to these regular anti-Nazi social gatherings hosted by widow of the late German Imperial Foreign Minister Wilhelm Solf. Just after Operation Valkyrie’s attempt to assassinate Adolf Hitler had failed. Himmler — head of the SS, architect of the Shoah, and Hitler’s number two — reassured attendees that the SS was in full control and had also foiled a “traitors circle” from the “reactionary cabal” who were “prattling over tea” at the home of the Widow Solf.
As its subtitle suggests, The Traitors’ Circle tells the story of a small group of German men and women — aristocrats, army officers, diplomats, teachers — who saw what their government had become and decided to fight it from within. From the countesses like von Bellestrem and Maria von Maltzan, to wealthy mandarins like Arthur Zarden, to protestant nobility like Elisabeth von Thadden, they were German insiders, not romantic rebels or racially suspect. They, mostly, came from the right families, wore the right uniforms, spoke with the right accents, and moved in the right circles. Yet, even a decade into the Nazi takeover of Germany, they resisted.
In a breathless prose that he developed in his side hustle as thriller writer Sam Bourne, Freedland dashes through the histories and stories of the seven or eight main characters. The cadence can sometimes be a little repetitive and annoying, but for the most part, it shuttles through the nearly 400 pages of the story in entertaining, if horrifying, fashion. As is the case with the The Escape Artist, though, the events are entirely true. The hardback stretches to more than 450 pages because, to reinforce its facticity, it contains 30 character summaries, maps, more than 45 pages of endnotes and almost the same number of pages listing sources.
The book mainly centers on the time between the Solf-group celebrating Anza von Thadden’s birthday and surviving interrogation at Ravensbrück concentration camp. In sections, though, it extends well before that time to establish the backstories of the resisters, their betrayer, and some of the Nazi elite that prosecuted them. These backstories are crucial to understand not only what they did – hide Jews, sabotage the army, encourage army intelligence to desert – but what gave them the perspective and the moral compass to stand up against a state that would have happily embraced them.
Freedland has noted that, though 3 million Germans were arrested and imprisoned for their anti-Nazi activities, they represent only 5% of the German population. Even before the Nazis had fully consolidated their power over the country, the vast preponderance of people and corporations went along with the vicious lies that legitimized the Reich. Education, empathy, experience of other countries and cultures, true patriotism unfounded in personality cults, and a religious moral upbringing are some of the traits that impelled them to oppose the inhumanity of the regime.
Sadly, corporations like BMW, Porsche, and IG Farben were also deeply complicit in the Nazi takeover. Indeed, Freedland notes that Siemens drew slave labor from the prison population at Ravensbrück, where the Solf-group was held. During the Nazi era, corporations willingly took money and economic control in exchange for loyalty.
Today, corporations are massive but equally tractable. Advances in technology mean that their control of capital and information dwarfs even the great corporations of the past like the East India Trading Company or U.S. Steel. Furthermore, economic logic dictates that they must maximize profit so, especially when faced with egregious retaliation from an ideologically-driven regulatory power, they toe the line. Indeed, corporations throughout modern history have mostly acted as a lever of ideological power not as a bulwark.
From Pharaonic atrocities in antiquity, through capitalist colonial processes like the African Slave Trade to the murder of millions in the Russian and Chinese Revolutions, humans have been cruel and inhuman to other humans for millennia. As Kafka and Orwell recognized, though, the truly frightening potential of the 20th century – being realized in the 21st — is when the networks and system of the modern state are mobilized to identify, delegitimize, isolate and destroy individuals or groups it designates as undesirable.
Every act of resistance teaches the system what it cannot understand. That’s as true of dissenting Germans in 1943 as it is of whistleblowers and protesters today. Freedland’s conspirators exposed the blind spots of totalitarian logic: that obedience cannot erase morality, that even the most efficient machine depends on the fragile cooperation of individuals.
Their story reads as both a historical thriller and a moral syllabus. Resistance is not a fixed ideology; it’s a form of literacy. You learn how to read the shapes of power and to write between its lines.
In his theoretical discussion of the concept of “resistance” in “Resistances to Psychoanalysis,” Jacques Derrida talks about the emotional pull of the term. He begins nostalgically, thinking about the resonance of the French Resistance “blowing up trains, tanks, and headquarters between 1940 and 1945,” but spends the rest of the book backing away from that macro, material definition. For his part, Freedland shows that resistance is not simply heroic, even violent, self-assertion but rather can be deliberate, pre-planned or responsive, acts of mindfulness. It teaches us to see how ordinary habits — bureaucratic procedures, polite greetings, professional codes — become instruments of control, and how they can also be reclaimed as tools of subversion.
Indeed, in a world of misinformation overload where so many of the platforms that feed us our news and opinions are corrupt — by state interests (TikTok), laissez faire enrichment (Meta), or billionaire racism (X/Twitter) — copious, accessible notes and references are Freedland’s full shopping bags. Presenting the truth is sadly a mark of resistance in a decade marked by lies, propaganda, and deliberate attempts to rewrite the historical record.
The post The Nazis would have embraced these elite Germans — nevertheless, they resisted appeared first on The Forward.
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French Jewish Community Marks 20 Years Since Ilan Halimi’s Brutal Murder
A crowd gathers at the Jardin Ilan Halimi in Paris on Feb. 14, 2021, to commemorate the 15th anniversary of Halimi’s kidnapping and murder. Photo: Reuters/Xose Bouzas/Hans Lucas
France’s Jewish community on Tuesday commemorated the 20th anniversary of the death of Ilan Halimi, a young Jewish man who was brutally tortured to death, as his memory continues to be defaced amid a rising tide of antisemitism threatening Jews and Israelis across the country.
“Twenty years on, Ilan Halimi’s memory still needs to be protected and honored, yet it continues to come under attack, as recent vandalism at his memorial site shows,” the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions of France (CRIF) — the main representative body of French Jews — wrote in a post on X.
“Antisemitism remains a persistent threat in France today,” the statement read.
Le 20 janvier 2006 marque l’enlèvement et le début de la séquestration d’Ilan Halimi, 23 ans, parce qu’il était Juif.
20 ans plus tard, alors que la mémoire d’Ilan Halimi doit être protégée et honorée, elle continue d’être atteinte, comme l’ont montré les récents actes de… pic.twitter.com/Htu9ntMHhq
— CRIF (@Le_CRIF) January 20, 2026
Last week, another olive tree planted to honor Halimi’s memory was vandalized and cut down, as French authorities continue efforts to replant trees in remembrance of the young Jewish man who was murdered in 2006.
“We will bring those responsible to justice,” French Interior Minister Laurent Nunez wrote in a post on X. “Our collective outrage is matched only by our unwavering determination to combat antisemitic and anti-religious acts that continue to tarnish the memory of an innocent man.”
This latest antisemitic act came after a plaque honoring Halimi was vandalized in Cagnes-sur-Mer, a town in southeastern France, prompting local authorities to open an investigation for “destruction and antisemitic damage.”
According to local reports, a 29-year-old man with no prior criminal record has been arrested. While he admitted to the acts, he denied any antisemitic motive and is now awaiting trial.
Last year, a tree planted in memory of Halimi was also vandalized and cut down in Épinay-sur-Seine, a suburb north of Paris.
Two Tunisian twin brothers were arrested and convicted for cutting down the tree, but were acquitted of the antisemitism charges brought against them.
Both of them were sentenced to eight months in prison, but one of them received a suspended sentence, meaning he will not serve time unless he commits another offense or violates certain conditions.
According to local media, one of the brothers has reportedly been deported from France.
Halimi was abducted, held captive, and tortured in January 2006 by a gang of about 20 people in a low-income housing estate in the Paris suburb of Bagneux.
Three weeks later, Halimi was found in Essonne, south of Paris, naked, gagged, and handcuffed, with clear signs of torture and burns. The 23-year-old died on the way to the hospital.
In 2011, French authorities planted the first olive tree in Halimi’s memory. However, the young Jewish boy’s memory has faced attacks before, with two other trees planted in his honor vandalized in 2019 in Essonne, where he was found dying near a railway track.
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Mourner’s Kaddish for Bondi Beach victims recited in Australian parliament as tougher hate crime laws pass
(JTA) — A Jewish member of Australian Parliament recited the Mourner’s Kaddish in an address Monday to honor the victims of the Hanukkah massacre on Bondi Beach.
The address, delivered by Jewish parliamentarian and former attorney general Mark Dreyfus, came over a month after two gunmen motivated by what authorities said was “Islamic State ideology” opened fire on a celebration in Sydney, killing 15 and injuring dozens more. Most of the victims were Jewish, and Dreyfus read all of their names aloud.
Dreyfus, who wore a kippah for the presentation, then commended the “acts of extraordinary courage” by bystanders and emergency workers during the attack, naming Ahmed al-Ahmed, the Muslim man who received widespread support from the Jewish community after he was shot while disarming one of the attackers. He also told the Australian House of Representatives that the country’s “response cannot be confined to grief,” exhorting his fellow lawmakers to take action around “upholding our laws against hate.”
Then he invited everyone present to rise for the Mourner’s Kaddish, recited in Jewish communities in memory of the dead.
“You don’t have to be Jewish to feel this in your chest, an attack like this hurts all of us,” Dreyfus said, describing the prayer as “a prayer about life, dignity and the hope for peace at times of profound loss.”
The public recitation was redolent of the decision of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette to publish the Hebrew text of the prayer on its front page following the murder of 11 Jews in their synagogue there in 2018.
https://www.instagram.com/p/DTtw-r7Dehs/?hl=en
Late Tuesday, Australia’s parliament passed anti-hate speech and gun reform bills initiated in the wake of the attack. The gun reform bill included new checks on firearm license applications and a national gun buy-back program, while the anti-hate speech bill banned hate groups and imposed penalties for preachers who promote hate.
The hate speech component won support from liberal lawmakers who said they had free-speech concerns after it was weakened from its initial version.
“The terrorists at Bondi Beach had hatred in their hearts and guns in their hands,” wrote Prime Minister Anthony Albanese in a post on X. “Today we passed new laws that deal with both. Combatting antisemitism and cracking down on guns.”
The new laws come as Australia grapples with another searing antisemitic incident. Late in the day on Monday, five Jewish teenagers in Melbourne were chased for several minutes by a car whose occupants chanted “Heil Hitler” and performed Nazi salutes at them.
The boys, aged 15 and 16 and easily identifiable as Orthodox Jews, were walking home from Adass High School when the incident occurred in the proximity of Adass Israel Synagogue, which was firebombed in December 2024. No arrests were immediately made.
“The antisemitic hate incident last night in St Kilda targeting young Jewish boys has no place in our country,” Albanese in a statement, according to The Australian. “At a time when Australians are joining with the Jewish community in sorrow and solidarity, it is beyond disgusting to see these cowards shouting Nazi slogans at young people.”
The post Mourner’s Kaddish for Bondi Beach victims recited in Australian parliament as tougher hate crime laws pass appeared first on The Forward.
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Number of UK Schools Marking Holocaust Has Dropped by Nearly 60% Since Oct. 7 Massacre
Tens of thousands joined the National March Against Antisemitism in London, Nov. 26, 2023. Photo: Tayfun Salci/ZUMA Press Wire via Reuters Connect
The number of British schools commemorating the Holocaust has plummeted by nearly 60 percent following the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, invasion of southern Israel.
Since Hamas-led Palestinian terrorists perpetrated the largest single-day massacre of Jews since World War II, the number of secondary schools across the UK signed up for events commemorating Holocaust Remembrance Day, which takes place annually on Jan. 27, dropped to fewer than 1,200 in 2024 and 854 in 2025, according to data from the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust.
The figure had been rising each year since 2019, reaching more than 2,000 secondary schools in 2023.
There are about 4,200 secondary schools in the UK.
Sir Ephraim Mirvis, chief rabbi of the UK, commented on the figures in an essay published in The Sunday Times, expressing alarm about an increasingly hostile environment for the British Jewish community.
“I fear for what will happen this year,” Mirvis wrote. “For if we cannot teach our children to remember the past with integrity and resolve, then we must ask ourselves what kind of future they will inherit.”
Mirvis urged readers to put themselves in the shoes of a UK teacher preparing a Holocaust memorial event. “Now imagine that as you begin to organize such an event, you learn that some parents of pupils at your school are unhappy about it,” he added. “One of the claims that Holocaust education is a form of “propaganda”; another insists that the event must not go ahead unless it also highlights the awful suffering of Palestinians in Gaza.”
Karen Pollock, chief executive of the Holocaust Educational Trust, described to The Times how some students “arrive in the classroom with views shaped by social media trends rather than evidence.”
The European Jewish Congress (EJC) released a statement on Monday reflecting on the drop in UK schools recognizing the Holocaust.
“Holocaust Memorial Day is not about politics. It is about memory, responsibility, and education. It exists to honor the 6 million Jews murdered in the Holocaust and to remind future generations of the consequences of hatred, indifference, and extremism,” the EJC stated. “Avoiding commemoration out of fear of controversy undermines the very purpose of education. When remembrance becomes optional, memory itself becomes fragile.”
The EJC continued, “Now is precisely the moment when Holocaust education matters most: when misinformation spreads easily, when antisemitism is openly visible, and when fewer survivors remain to bear witness. Schools play a vital role in preserving this memory, not only for Jewish communities, but for society as a whole.”
Dwindling commemoration of the Holocaust comes amid a steep surge in antisemitism across the UK.
The Community Security Trust (CST) — a nonprofit charity that advises Britain’s Jewish community on security matters — recorded 1,521 antisemitic incidents from January to June this year. This was the second-highest number of antisemitic crimes ever recorded by CST in the first six months of any year, following 2,019 incidents in the first half of 2024.
In total last year, CST recorded 3,528 anti-Jewish hate crimes — the country’s second worst year for antisemitism, despite an 18 percent drop from 2023’s record of 4,296.
“When a trigger event such as the Oct. 7 attack occurs, antisemitic incidents initially spike to a record peak; then gradually recede until they plateau at a higher level than before the original trigger event occurred,” CST stated.
These figures juxtapose with 1,662 antisemitic incidents in 2022, 2,261 in 2021, and 1,684 in 2020.
The struggles of the UK’s educational establishment to counter the rising antisemitism problem mirror the ongoing challenges confronted by its medical institutions.
In November, UK Health Secretary Wes Streeting called it “chilling” that some members of the Jewish community fear discrimination within the NHS, amid reports of widespread antisemitism in Britain’s health-care system.
The comments came weeks after British Prime Minister Keir Starmer unveiled a new plan to address what he described as “just too many examples, clear examples, of antisemitism that have not been dealt with adequately or effectively” in the country’s National Health Service (NHS).
One notable case drawing attention involved Dr. Rahmeh Aladwan, a trainee trauma and orthopedic surgeon, who police arrested on Oct. 21, charging her with four offenses related to malicious communications and inciting racial hatred. In November, she was suspended from practicing medicine in the UK over social media posts denigrating Jews and celebrating Hamas’s terrorism.
Other incidents in the UK included a Jewish family fearing their London doctor’s antisemitism influenced their disabled son’s treatment. The North London hospital suspended the physician who was under investigation for publicly claiming that all Jews have “feelings of supremacy” and downplaying antisemitism.