Resistance & self-assertion
From reports by survivors of Nazi concentration camps and other places of Nazi terror, we know of desperate acts of resistance and self-assertion by prisoners in the face of the Nazi killing machine.
Memorials tell of the fates that have been handed down and that took place at the respective historical sites. However, the commemoration of the victims should not obscure the view of the perpetrator society. In one way or another, the vast majority of the German population accepted the Nazi system and participated in or benefited from the marginalisation and persecution of people who did not belong to the "people's community" (Volksgemeinschaft) according to Nazi ideology.
Who put up resistance?
But there was also rejection and resistance in the German majority society. It would be wrong to look for this exclusively in the active political resistance, such as the White Rose, the Red Orchestra or the Officers of the 20th July. Did not those people who helped persecuted people during the National Socialist dictatorship and did not take part in Germany's community crimes also rebelled against the regime? Who were these people? Why did they help? Were they heroes and heroines? The Silent Heroines and Silent Heroes project is a memorial to these people in what is now Lower Saxony and Bremen. It was jointly organised by the Lower Saxony Memorials Foundation and the NLQ - Lower Saxony State Institute for School Quality Development. The website documents acts of resistance and solidarity by people in everyday life in National Socialist Germany.