Rioters comprised of aggitated wives congregated in Rosenstrasse. Women demanded for their husbands back from being imprisoned at the collection camp. Some thought that this women’s protest possibly helped assure that some prisoners would not go to the gas chamber. I found this incidence significant because it was one of the only protests in Nazi Germany, and by women no less!
This is my favorite part of the book so far. Women protesters seem like they probably would have been easy targets for the Gestapo or the SS, but somehow their efforts paid off. I can just imagine the noisiness of 600-1000 angry housewives shouting to the building, ‘Gebt uns unsere Männer wieder!’ Women get things done!
I also found this part of the book particularly interesting! Mostly because my character is a thirteen-year-old German-Jewish girl who has watched her father be taken away to a concentration camp. This is relevant because it leaves her, her mother, and her younger brother behind to survive on their own.
The Rosenstrasse protests occurred in 1943 and Sachsenhausen had been open since 1936 and was open until 1945. This makes these protests a valid event that I will discuss in my autobiography photo journal! My character’s mother could have easily protested in these protests and made an impact.