How the discovery of a secret tunnel inspired a film about Jewish resistance
The PBS documentary ‘Resistance’ surfaced the often unsung stories of how Jews fought back against the Nazis
Abba Kovner and the Vilna resistance in Lithuania Courtesy of Ghetto Fighters Museum
For biblical archeologist Richard A. Freund, who excavated dozens of Holocaust sites, it was critical to not disturb victims’ remains. His use of noninvasive electronic methods was considered by many in the field to be revolutionary. It also aided in one of his most stunning achievements: proving the existence of a rumored escape tunnel dug by Jewish prisoners at the Ponary execution site.
Following Freund and his team on this project was a group of filmmakers from the PBS science series NOVA. Paula Apsell, who was the series’ executive producer for more than 30 years, described being present for the discovery as “one of the most exciting things that ever happened to me while I was running NOVA.” When she retired in 2019, the tunnel story stuck with her.
“I kind of excavated these thoughts that I had had,” she told me in a Zoom interview. “Why don’t I know about this tunnel? Why haven’t I ever heard of this amazing feat of escape? And why don’t I know about any form of Jewish resistance except the Warsaw Ghetto uprising?”
This spurred Apsell to produce Resistance: They Fought Back, a full-length documentary about the number of ways Jews resisted the Nazi oppression during WWII, both through keeping their faith alive and physically fighting back.
Resistance is an incredibly well-researched film with a striking amount of archival video and photo, as well as interviews with Holocaust survivors. Most impressive is the inclusion of the actual words of those who were a part of the resistance. Beyond all odds, diaries and letters from resistance fighters survived the Nazis’ attempts to erase all records of Jewish strength. Some of these accounts were found decades after the war in excavations, having been buried underground by their authors.
The film is divided into three sections, or “Books.” The first book, “Amidah,” focuses on early forms of nonviolent resistance, such as the organizing of secret schools in the Warsaw Ghetto to continue Jewish education under Nazi occupation. “Book Two: Armed Resistance” explores how Jews in ghettos across Europe created a cross-country chain of communication. A number of Jews went undercover as non-Jews to smuggle messages and weapons from ghetto to ghetto. The final book, “Resistance in the Camps,” includes the story of the Ponary tunnel and other acts of rebellion from within concentration camps.
Apsell told me that the reason many stories of resistance have not made it into popular culture is in part because the German government didn’t document many of the uprisings. They did not want narratives of Jewish strength to be known. For many years, there was no mainstream questioning of the official accounts. Even as historians began researching and writing about the personal narratives of resistance, popular knowledge about Jews during the Holocaust lacked these stories.
Apsell conducted over 150 interviews with researchers and survivors and, in the end, she had more content than could fit into an hour and a half – the limit PBS set for Resistance’s runtime. Some of the stories she had to cut have been uploaded to the film’s website and will be included in a book about Jewish resistance that she is writing with non-fiction writer David Chanoff.
Apsell says she hopes that the film and subsequent book will prompt a stronger focus on Jewish resistance in Holocaust education, as well as change how we talk about other acts of genocide.
“We don’t hear about what the people did to try to fight it and there’s a story in that, I’m sure, in each and every genocide” Apsell said. “So I think there’s a lot of food for thought in this topic, whether you’re Jewish or not.”
The film Resistance: They Fought Back is airing on PBS on International Holocaust Remembrance Day, January 27th at 10pm EST. After its premiere, it will be available to stream at PBS.org.
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