International Day of Resistance Movement (10/04)

International Day of the Resistance Movement is celebrated annually on April 10 and is dedicated to everyone who opposed the Nazis during World War II (1939-1945) in the territories occupied by the troops of the Third Reich.

The resistance movement was organized with the participation of residents of the occupied territories who opposed the German troops, and was distinguished by the variety of forms of struggle against the occupiers.

The most common were: anti-fascist agitation and propaganda, publication of underground literature, strikes, sabotage and sabotage in transport and at enterprises that produced products for the occupiers, armed attacks to destroy traitors and representatives of the occupation administration, collection of intelligence data for the armies of the anti-fascist coalition, guerrilla warfare. The highest form of resistance movement was a popular armed uprising.

The resistance movement acquired its greatest scope in the Soviet Union, Italy, Poland, France, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria and a number of other countries.

In some countries (Yugoslavia, Poland, Czechoslovakia, France, Belgium, Italy, Greece, Albania, Vietnam, the Philippines), the resistance movement developed into a national liberation war against fascist invaders. In Yugoslavia and Albania, the national liberation war against the occupiers merged with the civil war against the internal reaction that opposed the liberation struggle of their peoples.

In the Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, the leading forms of the movement were the strike movement and anti-fascist demonstrations. In Germany, the main method was the secret activities of underground anti-fascist groups to involve the population in the fight against fascism, distribute propaganda materials, provide assistance to foreign workers and prisoners of war hijacked to Germany, etc.

In each individual country, the resistance movement was deeply national in nature, but at the same time, it was an international movement, since it had a common goal for all fighting peoples – of defeating the forces of fascism, liberating the territories of occupied countries from invaders.

The actions of movement participants in different countries significantly contributed to the victory of the anti-Hitler coalition and brought the end of the war closer.

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