Rosenstrasse Protest, Berlin, Germany, 1943

The Rosenstrasse protest was the only mass public demonstration by Germans in the Third Reich against the deportation of Jews. The protest on Rosenstraße ("Roses street") took place in Berlin during February and March 1943. This demonstration was initiated and sustained by the non-Jewish wives and relatives of Jewish men and Mischlinge, (those of mixed Jewish and so-called Aryan heritage). Their husbands had been targeted for deportation, based on the racial policy of Nazi Germany, and detained in the Jewish community house on Rosenstrasse. The protests, which occurred over the course of seven days, continued until the men being held were released by the Gestapo. The protest by the women of the Rosenstrasse led to the release of approximately 1,800 Berlin Jews.