Were there any active violent extremists (which I imagine would have played into the propaganda ministry's hands)? Did they have mass protests and marches? Riots?
It's a significant history one overlooked for a long time because of the cold war. Many Jewish people in Germany were in communist resistance organisations. The Centralverein Deutscher Staatsbürger Jüdischen Glaubens (the central union of German citizens of jewish beliefs) resisted the Nazis in the years 1930 to 1932, they had veiled campaigns to support the democratic parties against the Nazis. They co-operated closely with the Reichsbanner Schwarz-Rot-Gold and Iron Front.
Surprisingly Jewish newspapers were allowed to still publish for 6 years after the Nazis rise to power with a surprising amount of freedom and there were numerous polemics and editorials critical of the Nazis.
About 3000 jews were actively involved in the resistance between 1933 and 1945. Most of them were active in the communist resistance but also in other banned workers movements and organisations. It's difficult to separate them from these groups because they saw the success of such groups and the liberation of Jewish people as the same.
In terms of specific acts the Herbert-Baum-Gruppe carried out numerous progaganda activtiies and in 1942 sabotaged the anti-communist exhibition at the Lustgarten in Berlin. There were numerous other groups one led by Johnny Hüttner but again as many of these groups organised from within the communist resistance they were over looked throughout the cold war. The west shunned them because they were communists and the east only cared about the communist aspects of such groups not that they were Jewish. Helmut Hirsch was executed in 1937 for attempted sabotage. Eva Mamlok was arrested for distributing anti-nazi literature, sentenced to death but was commuted to imprisonment, died in a concentration camp along with all but one of that group.
So there was definitely jewish resistance. To answer your other questions, yes on occasion it played into the hands of the propaganda ministry. When the Baum grupp attacked the exhibition at the Lustgarten the SS retaliated by rounding up 500 Jews, of which about half were shot shortly after arrival at Sachsenhausen concentration camp.
Large scale protests and marches not many that I know of. The only one I know of is the Rosenstraße protests. In February 1943 the SS began deporting the remaining Jews in Berlin, these were mostly children of mixed marriages and Jewish men married to non Jewish women. Their families protested outside the assembly location at Rosenstraße. The men were returned to Berlin including almost 30 who had already been deported to Auschwitz. They were held as force labourers at nearby camp and many of them deported in the last months of the war.
Source: Arnold Paucker, 'German Jews in the Resistance 1933 - 1945. The Facts and the Problems' Hrsg. von der Gedenkstätte Deutscher Widerstand
This is a paper I wrote that discusses Jewish resistance during the Holocaust, specifically the question of whether Jews were "led like sheep to slaughter." My source notes have been left in so if you'd like I can dig them up. I hope this helps.
It has been suggested at various times through out history that the Jewish people were thoroughly pacified and that in the Holocaust they “went like sheep to slaughter.” This statement is an oversimplified misconception. In fact, as more and more evidence has been found it becomes apparent that the Jews of Europe resisted the Nazi regime in a myriad of ways. The types of resistance were as varied as joining military-style partisan groups to forming mini villages in the forest and trying to live and survive as long as they possibly could. The drive to resist and fight back was not limited to Jews who were outside the German’s direct control. Victims confined to ghettos and concentration/death camps also worked tirelessly devising plans to escape or sabotage their captor’s plans. To say that victims of the Holocaust went like sheep to the slaughter would be to discredit all the bravery and acts of heroism that came out of a situation where merely trying to stay alive was a heroic act of resistance.
Jews in occupied Europe basically fell into two categories: those that were under direct control of the Germans, these Jews were cordoned off into ghettos or were imprisoned in concentration camps and death camps, and Jews who were outside of this direct control, this group consisted of almost exclusively of people in in hiding whether in the forests or in cities disguised as gentiles. Even among these groups the “type” of resistance varied (Tec, 121). Among the Jews who chose to escape the ghettos and live in hiding were those who joined the various underground Polish and Soviet partisan groups. These groups were focused on resisting the Germans and their occupation through military means. There was a multitude of these different groups all with various political slants and ideologies. For Jewish people who were able to escape into the woods joining a group of partisans was not always an easy task or one that came without its own prejudices (Tec, 85). Many of the gentile partisans did not like Jews and they did not want to have them in their groups. Jewish people were often times accused of stealing or poisoning members of rival partisan groups (Tec, 107). Accusations like these led to Jews being barred from joining some groups at best and violent attacks at worst. The animosity was so intense that there were even exclusively Jewish groups formed (Tec, 94). Detachment 51 was an all-Jewish partisan group formed out of a unit that had previously not allowed any Jews at all, regardless of their ability to help (Tec, 94). They were given a Jewish commander from the Soviet Union and according to Zvi Shefet, a fighter who had been in the unit, were among the best partisans around (Tec, 94). Despite these very unwelcoming conditions, being part of a partisan group gave Jewish victims a way to stand up and take control of their destiny. Many saw taking up arms and fighting back against their oppressors as the best way to prevent further atrocities. They wanted to destroy the old stereotype of the Jew who doesn’t fight. There was also the desire for revenge. Dr. Icheskel Atlas was one these fighters who took inspiration from his want for revenge (Tec, 120). Atlas was determined to fight the Germans as much as he could and his support for his fellow Jews, though sporadic and unorganized, came at a time when very few others were offering themselves as support. The courage and resolve shown by the Jews who picked up arms and waded through not only the danger of being captured and eventually murdered by the German occupiers, but also the anti-Semitic and unwelcoming resistance groups is a remarkable testament to their will and determination not to lie down.
Outside of the partisan groups there were those Jews who decided to try to survive in the forest. These groups had more of a focus on staying alive and helping other Jews escape than they did on committing acts of sabotage and military operations. Many of the partisan groups would not accept people who did not have a weapon or military experience (Tec, 90). This left no other option for these people other than to form their own groups and to build mini villages in their new forest homes. A notable example of this type of resistance was the Bielski forest group. This group was lead by a Belorussian Jew named Tuvia Bielski. Tuvia and his brothers had escaped into the forest after their village was attacked and their parents murdered (Bielski Video). After gradually finding and helping more and more Jews hidden in the forests, the Bielski group grew to become a large contingent. Although considered by Tec to be a partisan group, their primary motivation was to ensure the survival for as many Jewish people as possible. The Bielskis would send out scouts to look for Jews who had escaped and were lost in the woods and then would lead them back to their camp to feed and introduce them into the group (Tec, 112). What made the Bielski group so remarkable compared to their Polish and Soviet counterparts was its policy of accepting any and all Jews regardless of whether they could fight or any other details about them (Tec, 113). They wanted to resist the Germans by continuing on as best they could. In their mind, living was the best revenge.
Jews who were not able to escape into the forests or hide with a non-Jew were forced into urban enclosures called ghettos. These ghettos were very cramped and often forced entire extended families to live within only a couple small rooms (Discussion). It is from the ghetto context that the phrase “being led like sheep to slaughter” is first mentioned when Abba Kovner opens his speech to the Vilna ghetto with the line, “Let us not be led like sheep to slaughter! Jewish Youth!” (Sources, 186). Life in the ghettos was nearly debilitating for many because of the oppressive restrictions imposed. There were nightly curfews and restrictions on what Jews could and could not do. There were also regular round ups of Jews who were sent out to unknown places and never seen again. The ghettos themselves were directed by a Nazi-appointed council of Jewish elders (Discussion). These councils could vary greatly in how they led the people in the ghetto and whether or not they actively tried to help their situation (Discussion). Although the Jewish councils appeared to give the Jews in the ghettos a sense of autonomy they were all but completely controlled by the Germans, this left the Jews with very few options. Eventually groups started forming within the ghettos with some Jews wanting to wait out the occupation and others wanting to actively fight back (Tec, 75). There were also Jews who could see the proverbial writing on the wall and decided to start preparing for the worst and working to preserve important information about the community. The divide between the people who wanted to take up what arms they could and fight back against the Germans and the people who wanted to try to survive as long as possible seemed to follow lines drawn by age (Discussion). After a major deportation of Jews from the Warsaw ghetto many of the younger Jews lamented the fact that they did not revolt and set fire to the ghetto (Tec, 71). Abba Kovner says to the young people of the Vilna ghetto, “Even if we are deprived of the possibility of an armed defense in this unequal contest of strength, we nevertheless can still defend ourselves. Defend ourselves with all means-and moral defense above all-is the command of the hour.” (Sources, 186). In this statement Abba is making a call, specifically to the young people, to stand up and not let the actions of the Germans continue without disruption. He admits the futility of what he is asking and openly says that the Jews of the ghetto cannot match the strength of the Nazis, but calls on them to rise anyway for the sake of not lying down. In some notable instances, such as the famous Warsaw ghetto uprising, the ghetto inhabitants took up arms and violently fought back against those holding them captive. Mordechai Anielewicz led the first military-style attack in the Warsaw ghetto when he and small group of followers surprised a contingent of German soldiers, who were conducting a deportation, with gunfire (Tec, 77). Ultimately, while not a large number of Germans lost their lives, the attack was successful because it showed that armed resistance was possible and the Nazis weren’t impenetrable.