There was only one public manifestation of opposition to the Nazi persecution of the German Jews, the Rosenstrasse protest of February 1943, sparked by the arrest and threatened deportation to death camps of 1,800 Jewish men married to non-Jewish women. Before these men could be deported, their wives and other relatives rallied outside the building in Rosenstrasse where the men were held. An estimated 6,000 people, mostly women, rallied in shifts in the winter cold for over a week. Eventually Himmler, worried about the effect on civilian morale, gave in and allowed the arrested men to be released. Some who had already been deported and were on their way to Auschwitz were actually brought back. There was no retaliation against the protesters, and most of the Jewish men survived the war. This incident was remarkable both for its success and its uniqueness, and again raises the question of what might have happened if more Germans had been willing to protest against the deportations.