"Spiritual resistance" during the Nazi era included defying the rulers by continuing religious and cultural practices. Some kept secret diaries and other documents. Students attended underground schools. In the face of terror and brutality, just maintaining the will to live was an act of resistance.

In the camps, where prisoners were often under strict surveillance, resisters struggled for physical and psychological survival. Networks of inside and outside provided food, money and medicine for suffering inmates. Resistance groups met in secret for political or religious meeting. Prisoners smuggled out reports to let the outside world know what was happening in the camps. Individuals smuggled in printed materials or news about the progress of the war.

In studying about resistance to Nazism, however, it is important to recognize that resisters were small minority compared with the overwhelming majority, who were bystanders, collaborators, or perpetrators. Then why consider the role of resisters? "We need the stories of hero and martyrs," explains Dr. Franklin H. Littell, "to give us eternal reminders that there were those who were surrounded by darkness far more intense than most of us can comprehend and still affirmed the dignity and integrity and liberty of the human person."