Rosenstrasse protest

The Rosenstrasse protest on Rosenstraße in Berlin took place during February and March 1943. This demonstration was initiated and sustained by the non-Jewish wives and relatives of Jewish men and mischling who had been arrested and targeted for deportation, based on the racial policy of Nazi Germany. The protests, which occurred over the course of seven days, continued until the men being held were released. The Rosenstrasse protest is considered to be a significant event in German history as it is the only mass public demonstration by Germans in the Third Reich against the deportation of Jews. In describing the protests, German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer states, "There were demonstrations, public protests against random arrests, - first dozens, then hundreds, then thousands of women, who demanded in unison "Give us back our men!" This lasted a whole week, in icy weather, in the middle of Berlin in 1943. Finally the protest by the women of the Rosenstrasse, furiously desperate and undeterred by any threats, made the Nazi regime retreat. 1,700 Berlin Jews, whom the Gestapo in their so-called "final action" had herded together into the Jewish community house on Rosenstrasse near Alexanderplatz, were freed."
It was the goal of the Nazi government to classify intermarried Jews similarly to those of the "full-Jew" status as defined by the Nuremberg Laws, and murder them accordingly. However, most of those deemed to be of the Aryan race who were married to Jews chose not to divorce, despite the increased effort of the Nazi Government to make a divorce from a Jew as simple as possible. The Nazi regime ultimately refrained from outright persecution of these intermarried Jews. Ultimately, Nazi leadership might have feared jeopardizing the secrecy of the Final Solution .

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