The Breslau Jew Willy Cohn had to witness, after the Nazis came to power, how German Jews were increasingly disenfranchised, marginalized, and existentially threatened. Nevertheless, emigration from Germany, his homeland, was ultimately not an option for him. In the winter of 1941, Willy Cohn and his family were deported from Breslau and murdered by the Nazis. Based on Cohn's decision to stay in Breslau, the study views this decision as a negotiation process and thus exemplifies staying in Nazi Germany as an act of self-assertion. For this purpose, Willy Cohn's diary collection, comprising around 10,000 pages from the years 1899 to 1941, was systematically reviewed and evaluated in its entirety for the first time.