Rosenstrasse Protest

Detail of the Rosenstrasse memorial, Berlin

Compared to the events that saw the deaths of over 50 million people it is very easy to forget to forget what happened at Rosenstrasse in 1943. However, it is a prime example of the effectiveness of non-violent action in the face of tyranny.

In early 1943 about 1700 Berlin Jews, mainly men married to non-Jewish women, were rounded up and herded into Rosenstrasse 2-4, a welfare office for the Jewish community in central Berlin pending deportation to extermination camps. However, the wives and other relatives got wind of their spouses eventual destination and appeared at Rosenstrasse, first in ones and twos, and then in ever-growing numbers.

Despite being unarmed and unorganized the women faced down the forces of the Third Reich. While Joseph Goebbels (who was also Gauleiter of Berlin) was anxious that Berlin be judenfrei, he was fully aware that shooting the women down in the streets would simply create antipathy to the regime and would almost certainly result in bigger protests. Moreover he was fearful that it would jeopardise the secrecy of the Final Solution, He therefore authorised the release of the Rosenstrasse prisoners and also ordered the return of those already sent to Auschwitz. The great majority of these men lived to see the end of the war.

By any standards the Rosenstrasse women had won an astonishing victory.

This link from the German website The Topography of Terror provides further information including personal accounts of those taking part and extracts from Goebbels own diary. The photograph above is a detail from "Block der Frauen" the memorial to the Rosenstrasse women. Click here
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