TEST 3 PRACTICE SKILLS GUIDE
Nazi-sponsored persecution and mass murder fueled resistance to the Germans in the Third Reich itself and throughout occupied Europe. Although Jews were the Nazis' primary victims, they too resisted Nazi oppression in a variety of ways, both collectively and as individuals.
Organized armed resistance was the most forceful form of Jewish opposition to Nazi policies in Germanoccupied Europe. Jewish civilians offered armed resistance in over 100 ghettos in occupied Poland and the
Soviet Union. In April-May 1943, Jews in the Warsaw ghetto rose in armed revolt after rumors that the
Germans would deport the remaining ghetto inhabitants to the Treblinka killing center. As German SS and police units entered the ghetto, members of the Jewish Fighting Organization (Zydowska Organizacja Bojowa;
ZOB) and other Jewish groups attacked German tanks with Molotov cocktails, hand grenades, and a handful of small arms. Although the Germans, shocked by the ferocity of resistance, were able to end the major fighting within a few days, it took the vastly superior German forces nearly a month before they were able to completely pacify the ghetto and deport virtually all of the remaining inhabitants. For months after the end of the Warsaw ghetto uprising, individual Jewish resisters continued to hide in the ruins of the ghetto, which SS and police units patrolled to prevent attacks on German personnel.
During the same year, ghetto inhabitants rose against the Germans in Vilna (Vilnius), Bialystok, and a number of other ghettos. Many ghetto fighters took up arms in the knowledge that the majority of ghetto inhabitants had already been deported to the killing centers; and also in the knowledge that their resistance even now could not save from destruction the remaining Jews who could not fight. But they fought for the sake of Jewish honor and to avenge the slaughter of so many Jews.
Thousands of young Jews resisted by escaping from the ghettos into the forests. There they joined Soviet partisan units or formed separate partisan units to harass the German occupiers. Although many Jewish council (Judenrat) members cooperated under compulsion with the Germans until they themselves were deported, some, such as Jewish council chairman Moshe Jaffe in Minsk, resisted by refusing to comply when the Germans ordered him to hand over Jews for deportation in July 1942.
Jewish prisoners rose against their guards at three killing centers. At Treblinka in August 1943 and Sobibor in
October 1943, prisoners armed with stolen weapons attacked the SS staff and the Trawniki-trained auxiliary guards. The Germans and their auxiliaries killed most of the rebels, either during the uprising or later, after hunting down those who escaped. Several dozen prisoners eluded their pursuers and survived the war, however. In October 1944, at Auschwitz-Birkenau, members of the Jewish Special Detachment
(Sonderkommando) mutinied against the SS guards. Nearly 250 died during the fighting; the SS guards shot another 200 after the mutiny was suppressed. Several days later, the SS identified five women, four of them
Jewish, who had been involved in supplying the members of the Sonderkommando with explosives to blow up a crematorium. All five women were killed.
In many countries occupied by or allied with the Germans, Jewish resistance often took the form of aid and rescue. Jewish authorities in Palestine sent clandestine parachutists such as Hannah Szenes into Hungary and
Slovakia in 1944 to give whatever help they could to Jews in hiding. In France, various elements of the Jewish underground consolidated to form different resistance groups, including the Armée Juive (Jewish Army) which operated in the south of France. Many Jews fought as members of national resistance movements in Belgium,
France, Italy, Poland, Yugoslavia, Greece, and Slovakia.
Jews in the ghettos and camps also responded to Nazi oppression with various forms of spiritual resistance.
They made conscious attempts to preserve the history and communal life of the Jewish people despite Nazi

TEST 3 PRACTICE SKILLS GUIDE efforts to eradicate the Jews from human memory. These efforts included: creating Jewish cultural institutions, continuing to observe religious holidays and rituals, providing clandestine education, publishing underground newspapers, and collecting and hiding documentation, as in the case of the Oneg Shabbat archive in Warsaw that would tell the story of the Jews in the Warsaw ghetto, despite its destruction in 1943.
What is the difference between a topic and main idea? ___________________________________
________________________________________________________________________________
What is the central idea of the text “Jewish resistance”?
___________________________________________________________________________________
What are two supporting details that help the author explain the central idea?
_____________________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________________

TEST 3 PRACTICE SKILLS GUIDE
The Underground Railroad was the term used to describe a network of persons who helped escaped slaves on their way to freedom in the northern states or Canada. Although George Washington had commented upon such practices by the Quakers as early as the 1780s, the term gained currency in the 1830s, as northern abolitionists became more vocal and southern suspicions of threats to their peculiar institution grew.
The popular perception of a well-coordinated system of Quaker, Covenanter, and Methodist "conductors" secretly helping fugitives from "station" to "station" is an exaggeration. The practice involved more spontaneity than the railroad analogy suggests. By the time escapees reached areas
Where sympathetic persons might assist them, they had already completed the most difficult part of their journey. A successful escape was usually less the product of coordinated assistance and more a matter of the runaways' resourcefulness--and a great deal of luck.
The most active of the Railroad workers were northern free blacks, who had little or no support from white abolitionists. The most famous "conductor," an escaped slave named Harriet Tubman, reportedly made nineteen return trips to the South; she helped some three hundred slaves escape. A number of individual whites also aided runaways, as did "vigilance committees," often biracial in character, in northern cities.
Estimates of the number of slaves assisted vary widely, but only a minuscule fraction of those held in bondage ever escaped. Few, particularly from the Lower South, even attempted the arduous journey north. But the idea of organized "outsiders" undermining the institution of slavery angered white southerners, leading to their demands in the 1840s that the Fugitive Slave Laws be strengthened .
The Reader's Companion to American History. Eric Foner and John A. Garraty, Editors. Copyright © 1991 by Houghton
Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved
RI 8.2
___________________________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________________________
The central idea of the article “The Underground Railroad” is _______________________________________.
(Supporting detail 1) _________________________________supports the author’s main idea because__________
_____________________________________________________________________________________________.

TEST 3 PRACTICE SKILLS GUIDE
Find another supporting detail that leads to the main idea of “The Underground Railroad” and analyze how it does:
___________________________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________________
RI 8.9
The Underground Railroad is often portrayed as the result of benevolent abolitionists who toiled out of the kindness of their hearts to lead and shelter fearful runaway slaves, helping them break free from the bonds of slavery to start life anew in the Promised Land. These abolitionists are depicted as white people who placed lamps in windows or quilts on fences as signals for safe places. Slaves would then hide in the homes and barns of conductors, hidden in their secret hiding rooms and passage ways. This scenario is the legend of the Underground Railroad.
The reality of the Underground Railroad was much less romantic. Escaping enslaved individuals often had no help or guidance from anyone throughout the majority of their journey. While it is a common belief that white Northerners were going into the South and bringing slaves from the farms and plantations into the North, the truth is that most enslaved individuals left on their own. When the enslaved did have assistance, the aid they received varied from being given a place to rest in barns and sheds to being provided with a small amount of food and sent on to the next location. Those seeking freedom would have had to place a good amount of trust in the people who were assisting them, for at any moment their safety could be compromised, leading to recapture.
It is also a common misconception that all people working to assist escaping individuals were white Northerners. The fact is that the majority of the conductors on the Underground Railroad in the South were Black, often still enslaved themselves.
Many people today are familiar with songs and symbols that were supposedly used by people involved with the
Underground Railroad. Songs include, "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot," "Wade in the Water," "Steal Away," and most famously, "Follow the Drinking Gourd." Current scholarship is debating the songs being used on the Underground Railroad or the time / origins of them. There is little to no historical evidence to suggest that these songs were sung by slaves to help disseminate knowledge about Underground Railroad routes, safe places, or code words. Despite this, these songs continue to be cited as key components of the Underground Railroad.
One of the most famous symbols of the Underground Railroad is the quilt. Supposedly used as an indicator of a safe place, it is claimed that quilts were hung from roofs, barns, and fences to signal to enslaved individuals the location was a station on the Underground Railroad. There are two pieces of evidence that allow many historians to question the validity of
Underground Railroad quilts. The first being that no former enslaved individuals accounts mentioned these quilts in the
Works Progress Administration Slave Narratives from the 1930s. Second, that quilts also were not mentioned in any 19th
Century slave narratives. Had these quilts been utilized by those participating in the Underground Railroad, it is likely that they would have appeared in at least a few of these narratives. There is also no hard evidence of their existence; no quilt with proven Underground Railroad usage has been found. Still, these quilts remain one of the most famous symbols of the Underground Railroad.

TEST 3 PRACTICE SKILLS GUIDE
ERQ Practice:
Analyze how the two authors of the Underground Railroad articles interpret and emphasize different evidence to establish their differing perspectives of the Underground Railroad.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________________
R
A
P
C
Use the words from the question
Go back & find answers in the passage!
Use key vocabulary!
I know this because…
This evidence demonstrates…