How individual, ordinary Jews fought Nazi persecution − a new view of history

Lizi Rosenfeld, a Jewish woman, sits on a park bench bearing a sign that reads, 'Only for Aryans,' in August 1938 in Vienna. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum /Provenance: Leo Spitzer, CC BY-SA

In Nazi Germany, Hertha Reis, a 36-year-old Jewish woman, performed forced labor for a private company in Berlin during World War II. In 1941, she was evicted by a judge from the two sublet rooms where she lived with her son and mother – she was unprotected as a tenant because of an anti-Jewish law.

In plain daylight, in front of the courthouse in the heart of the Nazi capital, she protested in front of passersby.