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“Resistance: They Fought Back” – new documentary film chronicles the many instances where Jews fought back against the Nazis
By MARTIN ZEILIG “Jewish resistance during the Holocaust took many forms, armed and unarmed,” notes Holocaust scholar and archeologist Professor Richard Freund in this timely and beautifully crafted feature documentary film by directors Paula Apsell and Kirk Wolfinger.
“We’ve all heard of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, but most people have no idea how widespread and prevalent Jewish resistance to Nazi barbarism was. Instead, it’s widely believed Jews went to their deaths like sheep to the slaughter.”
Filmed in Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Israel, and the U.S., Resistance – They Fought Back provides, as one of the specialists interviewed emphasizes, “a much-needed corrective to this myth of Jewish passivity.
Indeed, the film is a fervent repudiation of the thinking that Jewish resistance was either non-existent or occurred on rare occasions only.
As Dr. Margers Vestermanis, historian and resistance fighter in the Riga Ghetto, articulates, “The idea of resistance practically started with the formation of the ghetto. As we used to say in the ghetto back then, there were two options. You would be undressed…and wait for the bullet. Or you would resist, and you would be shot anyway. You would die anyway, but that would be a different death– a meaningful death, defending the honor of your people.”
There were uprisings in ghettos large and small, rebellions in death camps, and thousands of Jews fought Nazis in the forests, as is discussed in the film.
“Everywhere in Eastern Europe, Jews waged campaigns of non-violent resistance against the Nazis,” observes one of the commentators.
“All over German-occupied territories, ghetto and camp residents disobeyed German edicts to care for the sick and needy, setting up soup kitchens and educating children, maintaining a spiritual life of Jewish observance as well as a cultural life of music, art and theater, hiding and escaping, and documenting German war crimes – all this in the face of starvation, beatings, humiliation, disease, poverty, and the threat of transports and death at any time.”
Among those interviewed in the film are Professor Yehuda Bauer of Hebrew University and Yad Vashem; Professor Avinoam Patt, the inaugural director of NYU’s Center for Study of Antisemitism; and, Maurice Greenberg, Professor of Holocaust Studies in NYU’s Skirball Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies; Professor Michael Berenbaum, an American scholar, professor, rabbi, writer, and filmmaker, who specializes in the study of the Holocaust; Steven Meed, who’s mother, Vladka Meed was a Warsaw Ghetto courier; Yoel Yaari, the son of Bela Hazan, who worked in Gestapo headquarters in Grodno. He is writing a book about her based on Bela’s own notebooks, which reveals her “courageous actions in both ghettos and camps.”
We also meet concert violinist Dana Mazurkevich, who was smuggled out of the Kovno ghetto in a truckload of potatoes; internationally known artist Samuel Bak who had his first exhibition in the Vilna Ghetto at age 9; and, David Gur, whose forgeries saved thousands of Budapest’s Jews.
This is a film that deserves the widest possible viewership.
Ms. Apsell, who was also co-writer and executive producer agreed to a Zoom interview with this reporter on April 15, 2024. (Comments from the “Director’s Statement” are also included in Ms. Apsell’s responses.)
MZ: What is the genesis of this film?
PA: It got its start on a sunny June day in 2019 at my kitchen table in Boston during a visit from Holocaust scholar and archeologist Richard Freund. In 2016, Kirk Wolfinger, his team from Lone Wolf Media, and I had made a documentary for the PBS NOVA series following Dr. Freund and his team as they discovered an underground escape tunnel in a forest in Lithuania where the Germans and their Lithuanian collaborators murdered 70,000 Jews.
As we learned when our film aired the next year, very few people had ever heard of this tunnel dug with spoons by shackled Jewish prisoners, twelve of whom escaped to fight with the partisans. But it is far from the only example of Jewish resistance during the Holocaust. When I asked why such examples of Jewish heroism were not more widely known, Dr. Freund quipped, “Because you haven’t made the film yet.”
Perhaps intended as a joke, I took the response as a challenge. I had just retired after 35 years as NOVA’s Executive Producer, and I was looking for a project to engage my mind and my heart. And what could be more worthwhile, more challenging to research and recount, than this largely unknown story of Jewish resistance during the Holocaust?
As I would learn, many stories of Jewish resistance have all but vanished. In some cases, no historical records exist, and no one survived to tell the tale. The Germans documented many aspects of their war against the Jews, but they were allergic to any mention of Jewish resistance, leading many to think it never happened and to believe that “Jews went to their deaths like sheep to the slaughter.”
MZ: What else would you like to say about the film?
PA: The film my production partners at Lone Wolf Media and I wound up making is a passionate refutation of that way of thinking (that Jewish resistance was either non-existence or rare). Told by survivors, their children, and expert witnesses from the U.S. Israel, and Europe, it is a revelation based on extensive research of how the Jews of Europe fought back.
It uncovers evidence of non-violent methods which served as crucial tools of resistance and evolved into Jewish armed revolts in ghettos, forests and death camps, even as the odds of success were vanishingly small. Today, almost eighty years after the Holocaust, this story remains largely unknown to the general public. Without it, our understanding of this genocide, which wiped out two-thirds of European Jews, remains incomplete, giving rise to renewed anti-Semitism, hatred, and denial of the Holocaust itself.
It took four years to produce the feature documentary Resistance – They Fought Back during which challenges abounded, some predictable when we began, others totally unknown.
Our society’s understanding of the Holocaust, even after all these decades, is limited, misunderstood and frighteningly transient. Surveys indicate that two-thirds of millennials in the United States cannot identify the infamous concentration camp Auschwitz. In the U.K., surveys suggest that 1 in 20 people don’t believe the Holocaust happened, and one-third of people from seven surveyed European countries know little or nothing about it.
That Jews were complicit in their own deaths has become a common meme of both anti-Semitic and white supremacy movements, which are steeply on the rise. Therefore, this story is one that demands to be told now with the authenticity that archeological finds, rigorous historical analysis, and eyewitness testimony describing tunnels that were dug, sewers used as escape routes, examples of sabotage against the all-powerful German army can provide.
Thus, even as survivors leave us and personal testimony fades, we are gaining a new perspective to our understanding of the Holocaust. It is this story of millions of victims whose brave acts of resistance against a barbaric and all-powerful enemy have too long remained unheralded, that we are determined to tell.
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Features
Ontario Online Casinos Let Players Set Daily, Weekly and Monthly Deposit Limits
A deposit limit sets a ceiling on how much money someone can add to an online gambling account. In Ontario’s regulated market, players can choose limits covering 24 hours, seven days and one month, with the website’s system enforcing the amounts they select.
The settings are straightforward, but the timing deserves attention. A daily allowance may sit within weekly and monthly caps, while an increase can involve a waiting period. For adults using Chrome on a Chromebook, understanding these account rules starts with knowing where to find them.
Finding the Settings and Choosing a Period
Deposit controls sit within the gambling website’s account menus. The Tooniebet Ontario responsible gaming page is an operator-specific resource readers can consult alongside their account settings. ToonieBet is operated by Canadix Limited and regulated by the AGCO under an agreement with iGaming Ontario.
Ontario’s standards require an easy and obvious way to set financial and time limits during registration and afterward. Players must be offered deposit and loss limits when signing up, and the controls must remain easy to reach and change once an account is open.
Menu names differ between sites. Published examples place deposit limits under account settings or responsible-gaming tools, where players can select an amount and a period.
Each type of limit measures something different. Deposit limits cap money added to the account. Loss limits restrict net losses after winnings are taken into account, while time limits govern playing time. iGaming Ontario’s player guidance explains all three.
For Chromebook users, these settings are managed through the website’s account interface. Chrome’s own permissions handle separate browser functions, such as access to location information.
How Several Limits Apply to One Deposit
Players can have daily, weekly and monthly limits running together. A deposit must fit within every active cap.
Take a hypothetical account with limits of CAD $40 daily, CAD $100 weekly and CAD $250 monthly. These figures illustrate the process.
If someone has already deposited CAD $90 during the weekly period, the remaining weekly allowance is CAD $10. That becomes the most they can add, even when the daily limit has more room. Reaching the monthly cap would likewise block another deposit until some monthly allowance becomes available.
This is why checking all active limits matters. A new day may bring fresh daily capacity while the weekly or monthly total remains close to its ceiling. The longer periods continue to apply as the shorter one refreshes.
When Money Drops Out of a Rolling Window
The next question is when previous deposits stop counting toward a cap. Some sites use rolling periods, which track elapsed time from individual deposits.
Published Ontario policies include daily windows of 24 hours, weekly windows of 168 hours and monthly windows of 720 hours, equivalent to 30 days. Under that approach, each deposit frees up its corresponding allowance once it falls outside the window.
Suppose someone has a CAD $100 rolling weekly limit and deposits CAD $25 on Friday, followed by CAD $75 on Saturday. Seven days after Friday’s deposit, CAD $25 becomes available again. The other CAD $75 returns seven days after Saturday’s deposit.
Leaving the restored Friday allowance unused means it combines with Saturday’s restored amount. At that point, the full CAD $100 is available. Reviewing deposit dates and times helps explain how much room remains within a rolling period.
Changing a Cap Takes a Separate Step
A limit refreshing follows the schedule already attached to the account. Raising that limit requires a request and a wait.
Ontario’s standards require at least 24 hours before a player’s request to relax or remove an established limit can take effect. The existing limit remains enforceable during the cooling-off period.
Operators publish their own timings. Documented examples include a seven-day wait for deposit-limit increases or removals. Another published schedule allows increases after one day for a daily cap, seven days for a weekly cap and 30 days for a monthly cap.
Lower limits take effect immediately under these published policies. Some policies also restart the waiting period when a player requests another increase while an earlier change is pending. The effective date shows which amount currently applies.
Other Controls and Support
Deposit limits work alongside loss limits, time limits, short breaks and self-exclusion. Together, these give players ways to restrict account funding, gambling activity or access.
Ontario-regulated online casino play is restricted to adults aged 19 and older who are physically in Ontario. Gambling involves financial risk.
For concerns about your gambling or someone else’s, ConnexOntario offers free, confidential information and referral support around the clock. Call 1-866-531-2600 or text CONNEX to 247247. Standard message and data rates may apply.
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What “Best Odds” Really Means When Comparing Gambling Review Websites
The phrase best odds appears frequently in gambling discussions, but it is surprisingly easy to use imprecisely. MonsterBetList is primarily a casino review and rankings website, not a dedicated live sportsbook odds comparison terminal. That difference is central to evaluating what its reviews can and cannot establish. A casino rating may explain payout conditions, licence information and bonus restrictions, while a claim about the best available price on a sporting outcome requires a different kind of evidence altogether.
Odds and ratings answer different questions
Sports betting odds represent a price offered on a specified outcome. A review rating is an editorial judgement built from multiple criteria. These two numerical systems cannot be substituted for one another. A bookmaker rated highly for service may offer a less competitive price on a particular match, while a service with a more attractive price may impose different limits or verification rules.
Similarly, a casino review can discuss return-to-player statistics, but RTP is not the same as sportsbook odds. RTP describes a theoretical long-run percentage built into a game model. It does not tell a reader what will happen in one session and it is not an individually negotiable market quotation.
What makes sports odds comparable?
A fair odds comparison starts with identical selections: the same event, outcome, market rules and settlement conditions. Comparing a three-way football result with a draw-no-bet price is invalid because the products pay under different circumstances. The observation time also matters; displayed prices can change quickly as market information or trading decisions evolve.
The numerical format should be standardised. Decimal odds provide one convenient representation, but American and fractional formats express the same underlying idea differently. Converting these formats is straightforward. What matters is the net price, the operator’s rules and whether the quoted offer remains available when reviewed.
Overround explains the hidden cost of many markets
In a simplified two-outcome market, dividing one by each decimal price produces an implied probability. If the implied probabilities add to more than 100%, the excess is commonly described as the bookmaker’s overround. It is one way of understanding the margin embedded in prices, although individual market structure and adjustments can complicate the interpretation.
This concept explains why the word best should not be attached to a price without context. A strong headline may look appealing yet represent an ordinary margin after calculation. More importantly, any single quote is time-dependent. Genuine comparison requires a dated observation and equivalent market rules; broad editorial praise is not enough.
What casino rankings can establish instead
MonsterBetList publishes casino reviews and guides addressing licences, bonuses, payout experiences and responsible gambling. Those topics are relevant to evaluating consumer risk and service quality. A report about the length of a withdrawal process, for example, can be useful if its methodology is transparent. A bonus review can help identify restrictive wagering requirements that marketing headlines omit.
However, a casino ranking should not be presented as evidence that its highest-rated operator consistently offers the best sports prices. Unless a site publishes repeated market-by-market comparisons, that conclusion is not supported. Readers benefit when publishers clearly distinguish what was measured from what readers might assume was measured.
Bonuses can complicate comparisons
A sportsbook may offer free-bet tokens, cashback or other promotions. Their effective value depends on conditions rather than the largest number printed in a banner. Some credits are not withdrawable as cash; others require qualifying selections, minimum odds or a deadline. Casino welcome bonuses often introduce wagering requirements, game-contribution rules and limits on withdrawals. Combining these products under one generic promotional score can hide important differences.
For instance, a large matched deposit might require extensive play before bonus-related funds become eligible for withdrawal. The required betting volume is not a promise of profit. The presence of a promotion may therefore make comparisons more complex instead of simpler. Clear disclosures should precede any judgement about value.
Editorial independence and methods
Review sites sometimes state that rankings are editorially independent. Such a statement is relevant but does not replace evidence of consistent testing. Readers should look for the criteria used, the date of each review, whether real transactions were examined and how negative findings are treated. If one platform receives detailed testing while another is scored on marketing copy, the ranking loses comparability.
Commercial incentives should also be visible. Referral relationships or sponsorships do not automatically make every observation inaccurate, but they create reasons to ask how rankings are insulated from revenue. A publication that explains its methodology and corrections process gives readers a stronger basis for trust than one that simply declares its winners.
Licensing and dispute rights before price claims
A marginally attractive price is of limited value when the operator is not legally available to the reader or does not provide meaningful avenues for redress. Regulations vary by jurisdiction, and a licence in one country may not authorise service in another. It is prudent to verify the legal entity behind a brand and the current status of any licence through official records.
Consumers should also review identity verification, account restrictions and dispute resolution procedures. These operational conditions influence the actual experience of using a gambling service. A sensible evaluation includes them before discussing promotions or theoretical market advantages.
Why guaranteed-profit language is a warning sign
No ordinary review or odds list can guarantee that an individual will win money from gambling. Claims of certain returns often omit the fact that results are uncertain, prices move and transactions are subject to restrictions. Casino games generally incorporate a house advantage, and sports outcomes remain uncertain regardless of a persuasive analysis. The safest response to absolute promises is scepticism.
Readers should also avoid treating gambling as a means of addressing financial problems. Chasing previous losses and increasing stakes to recover money can deepen harm. Consumer-oriented coverage is more valuable when it explains risk and offers realistic options for stepping away.
Conclusion: define the claim before ranking the service
“Best odds” is a specific comparative proposition, not a synonym for a high casino rating. MonsterBetList can be examined for its published casino research, review structure and risk disclosures, but those materials should not be stretched into claims they have not tested. Clear definitions, dated evidence and honest limitations are the foundations of trustworthy comparison journalism.
