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Marian Turski has passed away

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Call for papers for international conference "Not the End, Not the Beginning"

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The Mystery of Izrael Lejzerowicz's painting has been solved!

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The inauguration of the EHRI Polish National Node

Icchak Giterman

Icchak Giterman had been a dedicated social activist and the director of Joint in Poland for many years. Ringelblum, who co-organized with him aid for Polish Jews displaced to Zbąszyń due to Polenaktion, wrote about him that he was a man of extraordinary thought, who had his own opinion about every issue. During the war, he supported resistance, organized aid for other ghettos, and since May 1940, he joined the board of Oneg Shabbat, supporting the group financially as well. In the Warsaw Ghetto, he lost his wife and son. He managed to obtain a false Argentinian passport but abandoned the idea of escaping. He was shot by Germans on 18 January 1943.
The project „Synagogue in Oni (Georgia) – traces of Polish and Georgian heritage in Israel”

Project is directed at students from Poland, Georgia and Israel and aimed at presenting the heritage of the Polish Jews, which inspired in turn the Jews in Georgia, and eventually became a myth for Georgian Jews who have settled in Israel.
"They want to bury us alive". The closing of the Warsaw Ghetto

16 November 1940 was a decisive day for the Jews of Warsaw. The community of 400,000 was closed in the prison walls of the ghetto, which – as Ludwik Hering wrote in one of his short stories – cut the people off everything which could make living possible. The documents from the Ringelblum Archive are the main source of information about the feelings of the people in the ghetto, their comments on closing the walls, their fears and hopes.
With God’s help. Kalonymus Kalman Shapiro, rabbi from the Warsaw Ghetto

Kalonymus Kalman Shapiro was a charismatic tzaddik from Piaseczno near Warsaw, an outstanding public speaker, an innovative teacher. Despite his personal tragedy which „had bereft him of all hope”, he didn’t abandon his mission to reinforce faith in his listeners. His sermons in the ghetto „were making a great impression and inspiring Jewish hearts”. Shapiro’s legacy in the Ringelblum Archive, which comprises textbooks for youth, sermons and private notes, remains one of the last testimonies of Hassidism in Poland.
Natan (Nusen) Koniński

Natan Koniński was a refugee from Kalisz. The Ringelblum Archive contains many reports written by him, such as "The Face of the Jewish Child", where he described the fate of Jewish children during the occupation. He was also a copyist – in general, 27 pieces of text written by him were preserved. We don’t know almost anything about Koniński’s life and circumstances of death.
The most diligent of all. Perec Opoczyński

Because of his difficult financial condition, Perec Opoczyński couldn’t fully dedicate himself to literature. „I have always felt that need, but never had material possibilities to devote myself to it”, he wrote. Before the war, he was a writer and a journalist; in the Warsaw Ghetto, he managed to find a job as a postman. His daily wanderings through the walled district and observing the nightmare of daily existence there inspired a series of detailed reportages, which he contributed to the Ring
Spending days working on a single word, part 2
Spending days working on a single word

The project of translating more than 35,000 pages of documents from the Underground Archive of the Warsaw Ghetto has involved several dozen people over the course of years. Their efforts resulted in the 38-volume edition, available in printed and digital versions. On the International Translation Day, we have asked translators, editors and coordinators of the complete edition of the Ringelblum Archive to tell us about their work.
We must find the Archive!

„Remember! A national treasure is buried in the ruins. The Ringelblum Archive is there. Even if the ruins reach five storeys high, we must find the Archive”, called Rachela Auerbach during the commemoration of the third anniversary of the Ghetto Uprising. Thanks to the determination of people aware of the significance of documents hidden in the Borochov school, the first part of the Underground Archive of the Warsaw Ghetto was unearthed on 18 September 1946.
„Wielka Szpera” in the Łódź Ghetto

During the „Wielka Szpera”, between 5 and 12 September 1942, more than 15,000 people were sent to the extermination camp in Chełmno nad Nerem. Only a small group was spared from the deportation – children from the privileged families in the ghetto community (police officers, firefighters, directors of main departments).
How did the Jews make a living in the Warsaw Ghetto? Jerzy Winkler

Oneg Shabbat gained access to statistical data and important official documents from the Jewish Council thanks to Jerzy (Icchak) Winkler. He was also the author of several works written especially for the Archive, such as The Ghetto fights against economic oppression. Jerzy Winkler was murdered in Treblinka in August 1942. He was in his thirties.
Bread has a golden color. Salomea Ostrowska

We can gather information about Salomea Ostrowska only indirectly, by studying her writings for Oneg Shabbat. Thanks to her work at the Quarantine Service at 109/111 Leszno street, she could have delivered a description of the institution’s functioning to the Ringelblum Archive. On the basis of 18 conversations with former inmates of the Pomiechówek camp for displaced persons, she wrote an essay – „Pomiechówek, the death camp”. Her date and place of death remain unknown.
Delet II Project – the “Berlinka” Collection

The Association of the Jewish Historical Institute in Poland, working in cooperation with the Emanuel Ringelblum Jewish Historical Institute, has received a subsidy for the development of the DELET II project from the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage. The subsidy, granted as part of the programme Digital Culture 2019, will serve to fund the digitalisation of the so-called “Berlinka” collection.
He couldn’t bear the tragedy of the Ghetto. Szmuel Bresław

Szmul (Szmuel) Bresław was a Hashomer Hatzair activist, as well as a contributor and an editor of nearly all periodicals published by this organization in the Warsaw Ghetto. In 1942, he was invited by Emanuel Ringelblum to cooperate with Oneg Shabbat. A large collection of bulletins from radio monitoring was preserved in the Archive. He has also contributed a few of his own writings, such as an interview with Irena Adamowicz about Polish-Jewish relations, Henryk Gotland’s biography, a study – „The housing officer” and one report, „The disinfection column”. He was killed on 3 September 1942, after he wielded a knife against an armed German.
A stone thrown under the wheel of history. Gustawa Jarecka

Gustawa Jarecka was a writer and a teacher. In the ghetto, she was working as a telephone assistant and typist at the Jewish Council, which allowed her to pass copies of Judenrat’s documents to the Ringelblum Archive (for example a transcript of the meeting on 22 July, during which Hermann Höfle dictated the German orders regarding the Great Deportation). She is assumed to have written The last stage of resettlement is death, a harrowing reportage about deportations from the ghetto, written in September 1942. She was independently bringing up two sons, Marek and Karol. Jarecka died together with her children in the train to Treblinka in January 1943, probably due to lack of access to air.
Izrael Winnik

There are several regular associates of Oneg Shabbat who we have little information about. Izrael Winnik is one of them. There is only one typescript signed with his name in the Archive. We don’t know whether it was Winnik behind unrecognized manuscripts, or whether his works didn’t survive at all.
Monday, August 3, 4 p.m. "We'll be burying the last part in a moment"

On 3 August 1942 two students of the Ber Borochovv school at 68 Nowolipki street – Dawid Graber and Nachum Grzywacz, along with their teacher Izrael Lichtensztajn, hid the last section of the first part of the Ringelblum Archive. Ten boxes with documents, as well as their own testaments and accounts, were buried in the basement of the school.
22 July March of Remembrance

On the 77th anniversary of the beginning of the great liquidation action of the Warsaw Ghetto the Jewish Historical Institute, together with its partners, invites you to the July 22 March of Remembrance. Together we will pay homage to the 300,000 murdered Warsaw Jews, whose life and death were captured by Władysław Szlengel in his poetry.
The winners of life. Cecylia Słapakowa

The lives of Jewish women in the ghetto were documented by Cecylia Słapakowa. She was a Vilnius-born translator, founder of the Warsaw literary salon, who in 1942 carried out 17 interviews with Jewish women from various social backgrounds and professions. This priceless source for research on daily life in the Warsaw Ghetto shows a shift in the social role of women during the war, but above all, it praises their versatility, courage and sacrifice.
A divorce of Chana Hermelin and Awram Mosze Fingerhut

A few days ago we received a mail from a family searching for information about a woman called Chana HERMELIN. The story they told is a little sneak-peak to the life of women in the pre-war Jewish community in Poland, and in the world, and it corresponds with a previous post about the status of ’Aguna’.
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