It is commonly assumed that nonviolent civil-disobedience would never have worked in dealing with the Nazis. However, the Rosenstrasse protest, in Berlin in 1943, was a success. Thousands of non-Jewish women protested together for many days, demanding the release of their Jewish husbands or sons who had been arrested and were going to be sent to concentration camps. Nathan Stoltzfus, a historian who has written the most authoritative book on the Rosenstrasse protest, describes what gave the protesting women the courage to face the guns of the Gestapo. He also talks about other forms of nonviolent defiance and resistance in Nazi Germany and highlights what we can learn about challenging dictators and other authoritarian rulers.
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