Resisting the Holocaust — Berlin's Hidden Heroes

Most people know the broad facts of the Holocaust. What they don't know is what it took to resist it. This expert-led walking tour explores Berlin's former Jewish quarter, tracing the destruction of a community and the extraordinary individuals who chose to fight back. From the New Synagogue — saved on the night of Kristallnacht by a police officer who refused his orders — to Otto Weidt's Workshop, where a factory owner protected his blind and deaf Jewish workers from the Gestapo. From the Women's Protest at Rosenstrasse — the only successful mass protest against a Nazi deportation order — to the Trains to Life, Trains to Death memorial at Friedrichstrasse station. Three hours. Maximum 15 guests. A discussion, not a presentation. Berlin's only specialist WWII tour company. Expert historian guide. Featured on National Geographic and the Discovery Channel.

1. 1

   Stiftung Neue Synagoge Berlin - Centrum Judaicum

   10 min

   Start at the symbolic heart of Berlin's pre-war Jewish community. Learn how this majestic building, nearly destroyed during Kristallnacht, was saved by a local police officer who refused his orders.

2. 2

   Stop 2

   10 min

   Stolpersteine — Stumbling Stones Pause at the brass stones embedded in the pavement, each marking the last known address of a Holocaust victim. Over 70,000 across Europe — the largest decentralised memorial in the world.

3. 3

   Stop 3

   5 min

   Founded in 1779 — Berlin's first free Jewish school. By 1942 it had become a Nazi transit camp. Hear the story of its last headmaster and the fate of those held here before deportation.

4. 4

   Stop 4

   15 min

   Between 1672 and 1827, some 12,000 Jewish community members were buried here. On the orders of the Gestapo, the SS destroyed the cemetery in 1943, smashing thousands of gravestones, throwing away remains and playing football with skulls. In April 1945 burials once again took place. Almost 2500 German soldiers and Berlin civilians killed during the fighting or shot by the SS for hanging white flags from their windows are buried in mass graves.

5. 5

   Museum Blindenwerkstatt Otto Weidt

   10 min

   tand outside the workshop where Otto Weidt spent years protecting his blind and deaf Jewish workers — falsifying documents, bribing Gestapo officials, and creating hiding places. One of Berlin's most extraordinary stories of individual resistance.

6. 6

   Stop 6

   10 min

   Stand where German women defied the Nazi regime in 1943 to save their Jewish husbands. For seven days they refused to leave. Their husbands were released. The only successful mass protest against a Nazi deportation order in the history of the Third Reich.Outraged, the wives of those detained numbering in the hundreds gathered to protest. Despite periodic threats of being shot if the women did not disperse the women would scatter briefly, only to return in larger numbers to continue protesting. As pressure mounted Goebbels authorized the prisoner's release.

7. 7

   Lustgarten

   10 min

   This cluster of buildings on Museum Island traces the transformation of public space under the Nazi regime — from civic and cultural institutions into instruments of propaganda and state control.One week after Hitler's appointment as Chancellor 200,000 Berliner's protested the new Government. Strict regulations imposed by the Nazi's over the coming month's restricted Germans' right to protest, hefty fines and arrests made protesting the Nazi regime very dangerous. In 1934, the Lustgarten was paved over to make way for Nazi propaganda rallies, swearing-in ceremonies and military parades.

8. 8

   Stop 8

   10 min

   The magnificent Zeughaus is the oldest building along Unter den Linden constructed in 1730 as an artillery arsenal. On March 21, 1943, the Zeughaus was chosen to exhibit captured Soviet weapons. Major General Rudolf Christoph Freiherr von Gersdorff, a member of the Wehrmacht resistance, was chosen to lead the exhibit. Despite 27 failed assassination attempts to kill Adolf Hitler. Gersdorff was resolute to succeed and agreed to blow himself up with the Führer. With two concealed Bristish clam mines, he planned to throw himself around Hitler in a death embrace that would blow them both up. A detailed coup d'état was in place and ready to go, learn what happens next on this tour.

9. 9

   Neue Wache

   10 min

   Germany's central memorial to the victims of war and tyranny. A single sculpture. An empty room. The silence here is deliberate.

10. 10

    Book Burning Memorial at Bebelplatz

    10 min

    On 10 May 1933, members of the Nazi German Student Union and their professors gathered here in Bebel Platz adjacent the historical and prestigious Humboldt University. In a nationwide action “against the un-German spirit”. Students burned upwards of 25,000 volumes of books that were deemed "un-German".

11. 11

    Trains To Life Trains To Death

    10 min

    End the tour at Friedrichstrasse station — at the memorial to the Kindertransport children. The same station that sent children to safety sent others to their deaths. This is where the question asked at the start of the tour comes back around. Designed by sculptor Frank Meisle, himself among those rescued by the Kindertransport travelling from here to England in 1939.

• Wheelchair accessible
• Infants and small children can ride in a pram or stroller
• Service animals allowed
• Public transportation options are available nearby
• Transportation options are wheelchair accessible
• All areas and surfaces are wheelchair accessible

For a full refund, cancel at least 24 hours before the scheduled departure time.