"Like sheep to the slaughter" () is a phrase that refers to the idea that Jews went passively to their deaths during

the Holocaust The Holocaust (), known in Hebrew language, Hebrew as the (), was the genocide of History of the Jews in Europe, European Jews during World War II. From 1941 to 1945, Nazi Germany and Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy ...

. It derives from a similar phrase in the

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
. '' martyrdom A martyr (, ''mártys'', 'witness' stem , ''martyr-'') is someone who suffers persecution and death for advocating, renouncing, or refusing to renounce or advocate, a religious belief or other cause as demanded by an external party. In colloqui ...

in both the Jewish and Christian religious traditions. Opposition to the phrase became associated with

Jewish nationalism * Zionism, seeking territorial concentration of all Jews in the Land of Israel * Jewish Territorialism, seeking territorial concentration in any land possible * Jewish Autonomism, seeking an ethnic-cultural autonomy for the Jews of Eastern Europe ...

due to its use in ''

Josippon ''Josippon'' (or ''Sefer Yosippon'', the ''Book of Yosippon'', ) is one of the most influential medieval chronicles of Jewish history, translated into many languages and republished in many editions, and a landmark of Jewish national historiog ...

'' and by Jewish self-defense groups after the 1903

Kishinev pogrom The Kishinev pogrom or Kishinev massacre was an anti-Jewish riot that took place in Kishinev (modern Chișinău, Moldova), then the capital of the Bessarabia Governorate in the Russian Empire, on . During the pogrom, which began on Easter Day, ...

. During the Holocaust,

Abba Kovner Abba Kovner (; 14 March 1918 – 25 September 1987) was a Jewish partisan leader, and later Israeli poet and writer. In the Vilna Ghetto, his 1942 manifesto was the first time that a target of the Holocaust identified the German plan to murde ...

and other Jewish resistance leaders used the phrase to exhort Jews to fight back. In postwar Israel, some demonized Holocaust survivors as having gone "like sheep to the slaughter" while armed resistance was glorified. The phrase was taken to mean that Jews had not tried to save their own lives, and consequently were partly responsible for their own suffering and death. This myth, which has become less prominent over time, is frequently criticized by historians, theologians, and survivors as a form of

victim blaming Victim blaming occurs when the victim of a crime or any wrongful act is held entirely or partially at fault for the harm that befell them. There is historical and current prejudice against the victims of domestic violence and sex crimes, such as ...

Background

Religious

;Judaism In

Isaiah 53 Isaiah 53 is the fifty-third chapter of the Book of Isaiah in the Hebrew Bible or the Old Testament of the Christian Bible. It contains the prophecies attributed to the prophet Isaiah and is one of the Nevi'im. Chapters 40 to 55 are known as "D ...

, a chapter in the

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
. '' Abraham Heschel pointed out that the context is more ambiguous, because

Isaiah Isaiah ( or ; , ''Yəšaʿyāhū'', "Yahweh is salvation"; also known as Isaias or Esaias from ) was the 8th-century BC Israelite prophet after whom the Book of Isaiah is named. The text of the Book of Isaiah refers to Isaiah as "the prophet" ...

himself protests

God In monotheistic belief systems, God is usually viewed as the supreme being, creator, and principal object of faith. In polytheistic belief systems, a god is "a spirit or being believed to have created, or for controlling some part of the un ...

's punishment of the

Jewish people Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, religion, and community are highly inte ...

. In

Psalm 44 Psalm 44 is the 44th psalm of the Book of Psalms, beginning in English in the King James Version: "We have heard with our ears, O God, our fathers have told us". In the slightly different numbering system used in the Greek Septuagint version of ...

, the

martyrdom A martyr (, ''mártys'', 'witness' stem , ''martyr-'') is someone who suffers persecution and death for advocating, renouncing, or refusing to renounce or advocate, a religious belief or other cause as demanded by an external party. In colloqui ...

of Jewish people persecuted for their religion is presented favorably: "Nay, but for Thy sake are we killed all the day; / We are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered" (Psalms 44:22). Jewish liturgy uses the phrase in ''

Tachanun ''Tachanun'' or ''Taḥanun'' ( "Supplication"), also called ''nefilat apayim'' ( "falling on the face"), is part of Judaism's morning (''Shacharit'') and afternoon (''Mincha'') prayer services; it follows the recitation of the ''Amidah'', the ce ...

'', a prayer derived from Psalm 44, which is traditionally recited each Monday and Thursday in the '' Shacharis'' (morning prayers): The Hebrew phrase in the Bible, "like sheep to be slaughtered" (, ke-tson le-tivhah), is distinct from the later variant "like sheep to (the) slaughter" (, ke-tson la-tevah). ;Christianity In

Christianity Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion, which states that Jesus in Christianity, Jesus is the Son of God (Christianity), Son of God and Resurrection of Jesus, rose from the dead after his Crucifixion of Jesus, crucifixion, whose ...

, the phrase was interpreted as the virtue of meekness, related to

Jesus Jesus (AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ, Jesus of Nazareth, and many Names and titles of Jesus in the New Testament, other names and titles, was a 1st-century Jewish preacher and religious leader. He is the Jesus in Chris ...

allowing himself to be

crucified Crucifixion is a method of capital punishment in which the condemned is tied or nailed to a large wooden cross, beam or stake and left to hang until eventual death. It was used as a punishment by the Achaemenid Empire, Persians, Carthaginians, ...

; Jesus was symbolized as the

Lamb of God Lamb of God (; , ) is a Names and titles of Jesus in the New Testament, title for Jesus that appears in the Gospel of John. It appears at wikisource:Bible (American Standard)/John#1:29, John 1:29, where John the Baptist sees Jesus and exclaims, " ...

Presbyterian Presbyterianism is a historically Reformed Protestant tradition named for its form of church government by representative assemblies of elders, known as "presbyters". Though other Reformed churches are structurally similar, the word ''Pr ...

theologian Albert Barnes wrote, "the fact that

esus Esus is a Celtic god known from iconographic, epigraphic, and literary sources. The 1st-century CE Roman poet Lucan's epic ''Pharsalia'' mentions Esus, Taranis, and Teutates as gods to whom the Gauls sacrificed humans. This rare mention of Cel ...

did not open his mouth in complaint was therefore the more remarkable, and made the merit of his sufferings the greater". He considered Isaiah 53 prophetic typology that had been "fulfilled in the life of the Lord Jesus", a typology that would continue as part of Christian interpretations of the Holocaust.

Secular

The inverse of the phrase, contrary to what was previously believed, was coined by the writer of the 10th-century Jewish history ''

'', which quoted

Mattathias Mattathias ben Johanan (, ''Mattīṯyāhū haKōhēn ben Yōḥānān''; died 166–165 BCE) was a Kohen (Jewish priest) who helped spark the Maccabean Revolt against the Hellenistic Seleucid Empire. Mattathias's story is related in the deuter ...

, a leader of the

Maccabean Revolt The Maccabean Revolt () was a Jewish rebellion led by the Maccabees against the Seleucid Empire and against Hellenistic influence on Jewish life. The main phase of the revolt lasted from 167 to 160 BCE and ended with the Seleucids in control of ...

, as saying, "Be strong and let us be strengthened and let us die fighting and not die as sheep led to slaughter". In a different context, the phrase was used by United States founder

George Washington George Washington (, 1799) was a Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father and the first president of the United States, serving from 1789 to 1797. As commander of the Continental Army, Washington led Patriot (American Revoluti ...

in 1783 to warn of the dangers of removing the right to

freedom of speech Freedom of speech is a principle that supports the freedom of an individual or a community to articulate their opinions and ideas without fear of retaliation, censorship, or legal sanction. The rights, right to freedom of expression has been r ...

: "the freedom of speech may be taken away, and dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep, to the Slaughter". The inversion of the phrase was revived by Jewish self-defense leagues in the

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire that spanned most of northern Eurasia from its establishment in November 1721 until the proclamation of the Russian Republic in September 1917. At its height in the late 19th century, it covered about , roughl ...

in the wake of the 1903

, although it remained rare compared to other imagery of victimization. In reference to the pogrom, the ''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'' reported that "The Jews were taken wholly unaware and slaughtered like sheep".

Yosef Haim Brenner Joseph Chaim Brenner (; 11 September 1881 – 2 May 1921) was a Hebrew-language author from the Russian Empire, and one of the pioneers of modern Hebrew literature, a thinker, publicist, and public leader. In addition to his literary innovations ...

's Hebrew novella ''Around the Point'' featured a protagonist who asked, "Were the Jews like sheep to be slaughtered?" but immediately rejected the idea. By 1910, the second version of the phrase, invented in ''Josippon'', was more commonly used. In a 1920 article titled "Will They Make

Jerusalem Jerusalem is a city in the Southern Levant, on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. It is one of the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest cities in the world, and ...

into a Kishinev?"

Zalman Shazar Zalman Shazar (; November 24, 1885 – October 5, 1974) was an Israeli politician, author and poet. Shazar served as the president of Israel for two terms, from 1963 to 1973. Biography Shazar was born Shneur Zalman Rubashov to a Hasidic family o ...

, later the third

president of Israel The president of the State of Israel (, or ) is the head of state of Israel. The president is mostly, though not entirely, ceremonial; actual executive power is vested in the Cabinet of Israel, cabinet led by the Prime Minister of Israel, pr ...

, argued against negotiating with the British

Mandatory Palestine Mandatory Palestine was a British Empire, British geopolitical entity that existed between 1920 and 1948 in the Palestine (region), region of Palestine, and after 1922, under the terms of the League of Nations's Mandate for Palestine. After ...

authorities because "The brothers of the

Tel Hai Tel Hai ( , "Hill of Life") is a name of the former Jewish settlement in northern Galilee, the site of an early battle between Jews and Arabs heralding the growing civil conflict, and of a monument, tourist attraction, and a college. It is curren ...

heroes will not be led as sheep to slaughter." In ''

Yizkor Hazkarat Neshamot (), commonly known by its opening word Yizkor (), is an Ashkenazi Jewish memorial prayer service for the dead. It is an important occasion for many Jews, even those who do not attend synagogue regularly. In most Ashkenazi communi ...

'', a 1911 book memorializing Jews killed by Arabs, the inverse was attributed to Ya'akov Plotkin, the leader of a Jewish self-defense organization in Ukraine, who had immigrated to Palestine and was killed during the intercommunal conflict in

Palestine Palestine, officially the State of Palestine, is a country in West Asia. Recognized by International recognition of Palestine, 147 of the UN's 193 member states, it encompasses the Israeli-occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and th ...

. According to

Yitzhak Ben-Zvi Yitzhak Ben-Zvi ( ''Yitshak Ben-Tsvi''; 24 November 188423 April 1963; born Izaak Shimshelevich) was a historian, ethnologist, Labor Zionism, Labor Zionist leader and the longest-serving president of Israel. He was 1952 Israeli presidential elec ...

, later Israel's second president, Plotkin had previously used the phrase in regard to defense against the

pogroms in the Russian Empire Pogroms in the Russian Empire () were large-scale, targeted, and repeated Antisemitism, anti-Jewish riots that began in the 19th century. Pogroms began to occur after Russian Empire, Imperial Russia, which previously had very few Jews, acquired te ...

. The book was widely read by

Zionists Zionism is an ethnocultural nationalist movement that emerged in Europe in the late 19th century that aimed to establish and maintain a national home for the Jewish people, pursued through the colonization of Palestine, a region roughly cor ...

in Eastern Europe. Yael Feldman suggests that this is the probable source for the verbiage

used in his declaration of 1 January 1942.

In the Holocaust context

During the Holocaust

During the Holocaust, Abba Kovner was the first to use the phrase as a call for action in a 1 January 1942 pamphlet in which he argued that "Hitler is plotting the annihilation of European Jewry". Kovner urged Jews in the

Vilna Ghetto The Vilna Ghetto was a World War II Jewish ghetto established and operated by Nazi Germany in the city of Vilnius in the modern country of Lithuania, at the time part of the Nazi-administered . During the approximately two years of its existen ...

to resist the Germans: Instead of viewing Jews as sheep, Kovner instead attempted "to cause a rebellion against the very use of that term", according to Holocaust historian

Yehuda Bauer Yehuda Bauer (; 6 April 1926 – 18 October 2024) was a Czech-born Israeli historian and scholar of the The Holocaust, Holocaust. He was a professor of Holocaust studies at the Avraham Harman Institute of Contemporary Jewry at the Hebrew Univer ...

. In a speech Kovner gave to members of the

Palmach The Palmach (Hebrew: , acronym for , ''Plugot Maḥatz'', "Strike Phalanges/Companies") was the elite combined strike forces and sayeret unit of the Haganah, the paramilitary organization of the Yishuv (Jewish community) during the period of th ...

after arriving in Palestine in October 1945, he explained that his phrase had not meant that

Holocaust victims Nazi Germany discriminated against and persecuted people on the basis of their race or ethnicity (actual or perceived), religious affiliation, political beliefs, sexual orientation, and, where applicable, mental or physical disabilities. Di ...

had gone "like sheep to the slaughter" and attributed that interpretation to non-Jews, such as a

Soviet partisan Soviet partisans were members of resistance movements that fought a guerrilla war against Axis forces during World War II in the Soviet Union, the previously Soviet-occupied territories of interwar Poland in 1941–45 and eastern Finland. The ac ...

commissar Commissar (or sometimes ''Kommissar'') is an English transliteration of the Russian (''komissar''), which means ' commissary'. In English, the transliteration ''commissar'' often refers specifically to the political commissars of Soviet and ...

. Kovner also said of the inability of so many victims to fight back, "All and everyone did go like this!", including

Soviet prisoners of war The following articles deal with Soviet prisoners of war. * Camps for Russian prisoners and internees in Poland (1919–24) *Soviet prisoners of war in Finland Soviet prisoners of war in Finland during World War II were captured in two Soviet Un ...

Nazi collaborators In World War II, many governments, organizations and individuals collaborated with the Axis powers, "out of conviction, desperation, or under coercion". Nationalists sometimes welcomed German or Italian troops they believed would liberate their ...

killed by their former allies, and Polish officers. The pamphlet was smuggled to other ghettos, where it inspired similar calls for resistance. In the

Kraków Ghetto The Kraków Ghetto was one of five major metropolitan Nazi ghettos created by Germany in the new General Government territory during the Occupation of Poland (1939–1945), German occupation of Poland in World War II. It was established for the p ...

, Dolek Liebeskind said, "For three lines in history that will be written about the youth who fought and did not go like sheep to the slaughter it is even worth dying." During the ''

Grossaktion Warsaw The ''Grossaktion'' Warsaw ("Great Action") was the Nazi code name for the deportation and mass murder of Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto during the summer of 1942, beginning on 22 July. During the ''Grossaktion'', Jews were terrorized in daily ro ...

'', the mass deportation of Jews from the

Warsaw Ghetto The Warsaw Ghetto (, officially , ; ) was the largest of the Nazi ghettos during World War II and the Holocaust. It was established in November 1940 by the Nazi Germany, German authorities within the new General Government territory of Occupat ...

beginning 22 July 1942, Jewish archivist

Emanuel Ringelblum Emanuel Ringelblum (November 21, 1900 – March 10 (most likely), 1944) was a Polish-Jewish historian, politician and social worker, known for his ''Notes from the Warsaw Ghetto'', ''Notes on the Refugees in Zbąszyn'' chronicling the deportat ...

criticized the brutality of the

Jewish Ghetto Police The Jewish Police Service (), commonly known as Jewish Ghetto Police (), also called the Jewish Police by Jews, were auxiliary police units organized within the Nazi ghettos by local '' Judenrat'' (Jewish councils). Overview Members of the ...

during roundups and the Jewish masses' passivity. Ringelblum asked, "why have we allowed ourselves to be led like sheep to the slaughter", and concluded that Jews were ashamed and disgraced because their "docility" did not save their lives. He concluded that the only option was armed resistance, even as a symbolic gesture.

After the war

In Israel

In the immediate postwar period in Israel, before the Eichmann trial, survivors who had not fought with the

partisans Partisan(s) or The Partisan(s) may refer to: Military * Partisan (military), paramilitary forces engaged behind the front line ** Francs-tireurs et partisans, communist-led French anti-fascist resistance against Nazi Germany during WWII ** Itali ...

were stigmatized for having allegedly gone like sheep to the slaughter. In response, some child survivors pretended to be

sabra Sabra may refer to: Arts and entertainment * Sabra (character), a fictional Israeli female superhero in the Marvel Comics universe * Sabra (magazine), a Japanese magazine for men * ''Sabra Command'' the original title of the film ''Warhead'' * ...

s (native Israelis), and other survivors never mentioned their experience. Armed resistance was glorified, partly because the

establishment of the State of Israel The Israeli Declaration of Independence, formally the Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel (), was proclaimed on 14 May 1948 (5 Iyar 5708), at the end of the 1947–1948 civil war in Mandatory Palestine, civil war phase and ...

also required

armed conflict War is an armed conflict between the armed forces of states, or between governmental forces and armed groups that are organized under a certain command structure and have the capacity to sustain military operations, or between such organi ...

. For example, the most popular textbook for elementary school students devoted 60% of its Holocaust coverage to the

Warsaw Ghetto uprising The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising was the 1943 act of Jewish resistance in the Warsaw Ghetto in German-occupied Poland during World War II to oppose Nazi Germany's final effort to transport the remaining ghetto population to the gas chambers of the ...

. In contrast, other reactions to the Holocaust were demonized: one textbook approved by the

Ministry of Education An education ministry is a national or subnational government agency politically responsible for education. Various other names are commonly used to identify such agencies, such as Ministry of Education, Department of Education, and Ministry of Pub ...

read that "the heroic stand of the Ghetto Jews also compensated for the humiliating surrender of those led to the death camps" and that Holocaust victims had gone "as sheep to the slaughter". British historian Tom Lawson argues that the idea of Jewish passivity during the Holocaust confirmed stereotypes of

diaspora Jews The Jewish diaspora ( ), alternatively the dispersion ( ) or the exile ( ; ), consists of Jews who reside outside of the Land of Israel. Historically, it refers to the expansive scattering of the Israelites out of their homeland in the Southe ...

held by the

Yishuv The Yishuv (), HaYishuv Ha'ivri (), or HaYishuv HaYehudi Be'Eretz Yisra'el () was the community of Jews residing in Palestine prior to the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948. The term came into use in the 1880s, when there were about 2 ...

, the Jewish community in Palestine, which contributed to their ascendance. Israeli historian

Yechiam Weitz Yechiam Weitz (; born 1951) is an Israeli professor and historian. Biography Yechiam Weitz is the grandson of Yosef Weitz, director of the Land and Afforestation Department of the Jewish National Fund, whose son Yechiam was killed in a Palmach o ...

argues that the "sheep to slaughter" trope "insinuat sthat millions of Jews who perished in the Holocaust did not measure up" and, if they had fought back, Jewish national honor would have been preserved. Israeli historian Idit Zertal writes that Holocaust survivors were blamed for not choosing Zionism in time. Israeli historian

Hanna Yablonka Hanna Yablonka (; born 1950) is an Israeli historian and scholar. Born in Tel Aviv, she is a Professor of Holocaust Studies at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and staff historian for the Ghetto Fighters' House. She has been described by S. ...

criticizes this perception, arguing that Holocaust survivors shaped Israeli memory. Feldman describes the myth as deriving from traditional European

antisemitic Antisemitism or Jew-hatred is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who harbours it is called an antisemite. Whether antisemitism is considered a form of racism depends on the school of thought. Antisemi ...

stereotypes of Jews as "the dishonorable antithesis of all the 'virile' qualities deemed necessary by modern nationalism". An alternate explanation advanced by Israeli historian

Tom Segev Tom Segev (; born March 1, 1945) is an Israeli historian, author and journalist. He is associated with Israel's New Historians, a group critical of many of the country's traditional narratives. Biography Segev was born on March 1, 1945 in Jeru ...

is that the sheep metaphor enabled Israelis to downplay the suffering of Jews during the Holocaust as a defense mechanism against cultural trauma. Initially, little was known about the Holocaust, leading to over-generalization. According to the just-world falllacy, Holocaust victims and survivors must have done something to deserve their fate. Kovner's speech of October 1945 was not available to the public for four decades, and many falsely attributed the accusation against Israeli Holocaust survivors to him. Disturbed by this, Kovner said in 1947 that one who had not witnessed the events of the Holocaust could not use the phrase appropriately; "like sheep to the slaughter" meant something different in Israel than it had in the Vilna Ghetto in 1942. Meanwhile, he continued to claim authorship of the inversion of the statement despite the previous precedent. The Israeli attitude toward Holocaust survivors was revolutionized by the highly publicized

trial In law, a trial is a coming together of parties to a dispute, to present information (in the form of evidence) in a tribunal, a formal setting with the authority to adjudicate claims or disputes. One form of tribunal is a court. The tribunal, w ...

Adolf Eichmann Otto Adolf Eichmann ( ;"Eichmann"
''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary''. ; 19 March 1906 – 1 Ju ...

, a key Holocaust perpetrator, in Jerusalem. During the trial, prosecutor

Gideon Hausner Gideon Max Hausner (; 26 September 1915 – 15 November 1990) was an Israeli jurist and politician. Between 1960 and 1963, he served as Attorney General and was later elected to the Knesset and served in the cabinet. Hausner is most widely known ...

went beyond proving Eichmann's guilt. He attempted to educate Israelis about Nazi crimes, "assumed the role of defense attorney for the dead and the living Jewish people", and called many survivors as witnesses. The public questioned whether resistance was an option for the masses, and the activity of rescue groups such as the

Aid and Rescue Committee The Aid and Rescue Committee, or ''Va'adat Ha-Ezrah ve-ha-Hatzalah be-Budapesht'' (''Vaada'' for short; name in ) was a small committee of Zionists in Budapest, Hungary, in 1944–1945, who helped Hungarian Jews escape the Holocaust during the Ge ...

was viewed more favorably. Public opinion shifted to blaming the perpetrators exclusively.

Revisionist Zionist Revisionist Zionism is a form of Zionism characterized by territorial maximalism. Revisionist Zionism promoted expansionism and the establishment of a Jewish majority on both sides of the Jordan River. Developed by Ze'ev Jabotinsky in the 1920s ...

poet

Uri Zvi Greenberg Uri Zvi Greenberg (; September 22, 1896 – May 8, 1981; also spelled Uri Zvi Grinberg) was an Israeli poet, journalist and politician who wrote in Yiddish and Hebrew. Widely regarded among the greatest poets in the country's history, he was a ...

said, "It is a crime to say that, in the time of Hitler, Diaspora Jewry could have gone to their deaths differently." The

Labor Zionist Labor Zionism () or socialist Zionism () is the Left-wing politics, left-wing, socialism, socialist variant of Zionism. For many years, it was the most significant tendency among Zionists and Zionist organizations, and was seen as the Zionist ...

writer Haim Guri wrote:

Outside of Israel

The Warsaw Ghetto boy After the war, the idea that Jewish Holocaust victims and survivors had been passive was reinforced by photographs of liberated

Nazi concentration camps From 1933 to 1945, Nazi Germany operated more than a thousand concentration camps (), including subcamp (SS), subcamps on its own territory and in parts of German-occupied Europe. The first camps were established in March 1933 immediately af ...

depicting emaciated survivors. Because

Nazi propaganda films Propaganda was a tool of the Nazi Party in Germany from its earliest days to the end of the regime in May 1945 at the end of World War II. As the party gained power, the scope and efficacy of its propaganda grew and permeated an increasing amou ...

were often the only source of footage, their use in postwar documentaries supported the idea of Jewish passivity, as did the iconic

Warsaw Ghetto boy The Warsaw Ghetto boy is a boy photographed in 1943 during the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. In the best-known photograph taken during the uprising, a boy holds his hands over his head while Josef Blösche points a submachine gun in his direction. T ...

photograph. The claim that Jewish concentration camp prisoners were more passive than non-Jewish prisoners often obscured historical fact, such as the fact that Jews launched six of the seven uprisings in concentration or death camps. In 1946, survivor and psychologist

Viktor Frankl Viktor Emil Frankl (; 26 March 1905 – 2 September 1997) was an Austrian neurologist, psychologist, philosopher, and The Holocaust, Holocaust survivor, who founded logotherapy, a school of psychotherapy that describes a search for a life's mean ...

wrote the bestselling book ''

Man's Search for Meaning ''Man's Search for Meaning'' () is a 1946 book by Viktor Frankl chronicling his experiences as a prisoner in Nazi concentration camps during World War II, and describing his psychotherapeutic method, which involved identifying a purpose to eac ...

'', based on his own experiences, in which he claimed that a positive attitude was essential to surviving the camps. Consequently, he implied that those who died had given up. Historians have concluded that there was little connection between attitude and survival. In 1960, Jewish psychoanalyst

Bruno Bettelheim Bruno Bettelheim (; August 28, 1903 – March 13, 1990) was an Austrian-born American psychologist, scholar, public intellectual and writer who spent most of his academic and clinical career in the United States. An early writer on autism, Bet ...

claimed that "Like lemmings, illionsmarched themselves to their own death" and that

Anne Frank Annelies Marie Frank (, ; 12 June 1929 – February or March 1945)Research by The Anne Frank House in 2015 revealed that Frank may have died in February 1945 rather than in March, as Dutch authorities had long assumed"New research sheds new li ...

and her family were partly to blame for not owning firearms. In his 1961 book ''

The Destruction of the European Jews ''The Destruction of the European Jews'' is a 1961 book by historian Raul Hilberg. Hilberg revised his work in 1985, and it appeared in a new three-volume edition. It is largely held to be the first comprehensive historical study of the Holoca ...

'', historian

Raul Hilberg Raul Hilberg (June 2, 1926 – August 4, 2007) was a Jewish Austrian-born American political scientist and historian. He was widely considered to be the preeminent scholar on the Holocaust. Christopher R. Browning has called him the founding f ...

characterized Jewish resistance as an extremely marginal phenomenon. However, he evaluated the resistance solely by the number of Germans killed. Instead, he argued that Jews had "speeded the process of destruction" by obedience to German orders conditioned by the passivity of

Jewish diaspora The Jewish diaspora ( ), alternatively the dispersion ( ) or the exile ( ; ), consists of Jews who reside outside of the Land of Israel. Historically, it refers to the expansive scattering of the Israelites out of their homeland in the Southe ...

culture. In the 1985 edition, Hilberg quoted Ringelblum to support this argument.

Hannah Arendt Hannah Arendt (born Johanna Arendt; 14 October 1906 – 4 December 1975) was a German and American historian and philosopher. She was one of the most influential political theory, political theorists of the twentieth century. Her work ...

explicitly rejected the idea that Jewish victims had gone "like sheep to the slaughter", because all victims of Nazi persecution had behaved similarly. She argued that Bettelheim expected that Jews would somehow divine Nazi intentions better than other victims and privately criticized Hilberg for "babbl ngabout a 'death wish' of the Jews". Although she criticized Israeli prosecutor

for asking survivors why they had not resisted, she also described Jews as obeying Nazi orders with "submissive meekness" and "arriving on time at the transportation points, walking under their own power to the places of execution, digging their own graves, undressing and making neat piles of their clothing, and lying down side by side to be shot", a characterization American Holocaust scholar

Deborah Lipstadt Deborah Esther Lipstadt (born March 18, 1947) is an American historian and diplomat, best known as author of the books ''Denying the Holocaust'' (1993), ''History on Trial: My Day in Court with a Holocaust Denier'' (2005), ''The Eichmann Trial'' ...

found "disturbing". Arendt blamed the ''

Judenrat A ''Judenrat'' (, ) was an administrative body, established in any zone of German-occupied Europe during World War II, purporting to represent its Jewish community in dealings with the Nazi authorities. The Germans required Jews to form ''J ...

'' for collaborating with the Nazis, an assessment not commonly accepted today. Despite her more nuanced portrayal, her arguments in ''

Eichmann in Jerusalem ''Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil'' is a 1963 book by the philosopher and political thinker Hannah Arendt. Arendt, a Jew who fled Germany during Adolf Hitler's rise to power, reported on the trial of Adolf Eichmann, one of ...

'' were equated with those of Hilberg and Bettelheim and harshly criticized. After the first three decades, the trope became less of a driving force in

Holocaust historiography Holocaust studies, or sometimes Holocaust research, is a scholarly discipline that encompasses the historical research and study of the Holocaust. Institutions dedicated to Holocaust research investigate the multidisciplinary and interdisciplinar ...

, according to Lawson. But Richard Middleton-Kaplan cites the 2010 film '' The Debt'', about a Nazi war criminal who taunts and escapes from his Jewish captors, as a recent example of a work perpetuating the perception that Jews passively acquiesced to their fate, because the Nazi's claims to that effect are not rebutted. Israeli settlers protesting

evacuation Evacuation or Evacuate may refer to: * Casualty evacuation (CASEVAC), patient evacuation in combat situations * Casualty movement, the procedure for moving a casualty from its initial location to an ambulance * Emergency evacuation, removal of pers ...

from the

Gaza Strip The Gaza Strip, also known simply as Gaza, is a small territory located on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea; it is the smaller of the two Palestinian territories, the other being the West Bank, that make up the State of Palestine. I ...

said "we will not go as sheep to slaughter", which was considered hyperbole.

Criticism

The phrase became so widespread and widely believed that historians of Jewish resistance during the Holocaust used it as the title of works challenging perceptions of Jewish passivitity.

Daniel Goldhagen Daniel Jonah Goldhagen (born June 30, 1959) is an American author, and former associate professor of government and social studies at Harvard University. Goldhagen reached attention and broad criticism as the author of two books about the Holocau ...

criticized the "maddening, oft-heard phrase 'like sheep to slaughter'" as a "misconception" in his blurb for the 1994 book ''Resistance: The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising''. The entry on Jewish resistance in Eastern Europe in the 2001 '' The Holocaust Encyclopedia'' opens by debunking the "false assumptions" behind questions such as "Why did the Jews go like sheep to the slaughter?" Yehuda Bauer has argued that "those who use it are identifying, even unconsciously, with the killers", who denied their victims' humanity. He notes that "Jews were not sheep. Jews were Jews, Jews were human beings" who were murdered, not slaughtered. American sociologist

Nechama Tec Nechama Tec (née Bawnik, 15 May 1931 – 3 August 2023) was a Polish-American historian who was professor emerita of Sociology at the University of Connecticut. She received her Ph.D. in sociology at Columbia University, where she studied and ...

says she is frequently asked "Why did Jews go like sheep to the slaughter?", which she calls "a blatantly false assumption" because the opportunity to resist was not often present, and many Jews employed creative survival strategies. Tec strongly criticizes the idea that "the victims themselves were partly to blame for their own destruction". According to Holocaust historian Peter Hayes, "nothing in the literature on the Shoah is more unseemly than the blame cast by some writers on an almost completely unarmed, isolated, terrified, tortured, and enervated people for allegedly failing to respond adequately". Survivors including

Elie Wiesel Eliezer "Elie" Wiesel (September 30, 1928 – July 2, 2016) was a Romanian-born American writer, professor, political activist, List of Nobel Peace Prize laureates#1980, Nobel laureate, and Holocaust survivor. He authored Elie Wiesel bibliogra ...

and

Primo Levi Primo Michele Levi (; 31 July 1919 – 11 April 1987) was a Jewish Italian chemist, partisan, Holocaust survivor and writer. He was the author of several books, collections of short stories, essays, poems and one novel. His best-known works i ...

have also criticized the tendency to blame Jews for their plight during the Holocaust, which Wiesel called "The height of irony and cruelty: the dead victims needed to be defended, while the killers, dead and alive, were left alone." Psychologist Eva Fogelman argues that the victim-blaming tendency stems from the desire to "avoid confronting the question: What would I have done? And would I have survived?" According to Fogelman, "Blaming the victims not only distorts history; it also perpetuates their victimization." Rabbi

Emil Fackenheim Emil Ludwig Fackenheim (; 22 June 1916 – 19 September 2003) was a Jewish philosopher and Reform rabbi. Born in Halle, Germany, he was arrested by Nazis on the night of 9 November 1938, known as . Briefly interned at the Sachsenhausen con ...

wrote that "the loose talk about 'sheep to slaughter' and 'collaborationist' Judenräte" is caused by

willful ignorance In law, willful ignorance is when a person seeks to avoid civil or criminal liability for a wrongful act by intentionally keeping themselves unaware of facts that would render them liable or implicated. In '' United States v. Jewell'', the court ...

of the facts of the Holocaust because "it is more comfortable to blame the victim". Rabbi Yisrael Rutman argued that the "true meaning" of the phrase is the spiritual strength of Jews who had no opportunity to resist their murder. Rabbi Bernard Rosenberg writes that to understand the fallacy of the "sheep to the slaughter" myth, one must consider the lived experience of survivors who had no opportunity to fight back against their oppressors. Rosenberg argues that survival and the effort to rebuild lives, communities, and the Jewish state after the Holocaust was a form of fighting back, as is preserving Jewish tradition today. Orthodox Rabbi and author

Shmuley Boteach Jacob Shmuel Boteach (born November 19, 1966), known as Shmuley Boteach, is an American Jewish rabbi, author, and media host. He is the author of 31 books, including the best-seller ''Kosher Sex: A Recipe for Passion and Intimacy'' (1999) and ...

calls the phrase a "double insult to the martyred six million" because it both accuses them of cowardice and blames them for their fate.

Background

Religious

Secular

In the Holocaust context

During the Holocaust

After the war

In Israel

Outside of Israel

Criticism

See also

References

Citations

Print sources

Web sources

Further reading