The Ringelblum Archive is a collection of documents from the

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

Warsaw Ghetto The Warsaw Ghetto (german: Warschauer Ghetto, officially , "Jewish Residential District in Warsaw"; pl, getto warszawskie) was the largest of the Nazi ghettos during World War II and the Holocaust. It was established in November 1940 by the G ...

, collected and preserved by a group known by the

codename A code name, call sign or cryptonym is a Code word (figure of speech), code word or name used, sometimes clandestinely, to refer to another name, word, project, or person. Code names are often used for military purposes, or in espionage. They may ...

Oyneg Shabbos (in

Modern Israeli Hebrew Modern Hebrew ( he, עברית חדשה, ''ʿivrít ḥadašá ', , '' lit.'' "Modern Hebrew" or "New Hebrew"), also known as Israeli Hebrew or Israeli, and generally referred to by speakers simply as Hebrew ( ), is the standard form of the He ...

, Oneg Shabbat; he, עונג שבת), led by

Jew Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""Th ...

ish historian

Emanuel Ringelblum Emanuel Ringelblum (November 21, 1900 – March 10 (most likely), 1944) was a Polish historian, politician and social worker, known for his ''Notes from the Warsaw Ghetto'', ''Notes on the Refugees in Zbąszyn'' chronicling the deportation of Je ...

. The group, which included historians, writers, rabbis, and social workers, was dedicated to chronicling life in the Ghetto during the

German occupation German-occupied Europe refers to the sovereign countries of Europe which were wholly or partly occupied and civil-occupied (including puppet governments) by the military forces and the government of Nazi Germany at various times between 1939 an ...

. They worked as a team, collecting documents and soliciting testimonies and reports from dozens of volunteers of all ages. The materials submitted included essays, diaries, drawings, wall posters, and other materials describing life in the Ghetto. The collecting work began in September 1939 and ended in January 1943. Today the discovered part of the collection, containing some 6,000 documents (some 35,000 pages), is housed in

Warsaw Warsaw ( pl, Warszawa, ), officially the Capital City of Warsaw,, abbreviation: ''m.st. Warszawa'' is the capital and largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the River Vistula in east-central Poland, and its population is officia ...

at the

Jewish Historical Institute The Jewish Historical Institute ( pl, Żydowski Instytut Historyczny or ''ŻIH''; yi, ייִדישער היסטאָרישער אינסטיטוט), also known as the Emanuel Ringelblum Jewish Historical Institute, is a public cultural and research ...

.Emanuel Ringelblum: The Creator of “Oneg Shabbat”
Holocaust Research Project.

Etymology

The name ''Oneg Shabbat'' means ''joy of the Sabbath'' in

Hebrew Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...

and usually refers to a celebratory gathering held after

Sabbath In Abrahamic religions, the Sabbath () or Shabbat (from Hebrew ) is a day set aside for rest and worship. According to the Book of Exodus, the Sabbath is a day of rest on the seventh day, commanded by God to be kept as a holy day of rest, as G ...

services, often with food, singing, study, discussion, and socializing. This name was selected because the group tended to meet on Shabbat to discuss the progress of their collection and documentation efforts. The form ''Oyneg Shabbos'' is

Ashkenazic Ashkenazi Jews ( ; he, יְהוּדֵי אַשְׁכְּנַז, translit=Yehudei Ashkenaz, ; yi, אַשכּנזישע ייִדן, Ashkenazishe Yidn), also known as Ashkenazic Jews or ''Ashkenazim'',, Ashkenazi Hebrew pronunciation: , singu ...

pronunciation.

History

The members of Oyneg Shabbos initially collected the material with the intention that they would write a book after the war about the horrors they had witnessed. The Warsaw Ghetto was sealed on November 16, 1940. As the pace of deportations increased, and it became clear that the destination was the

Treblinka Treblinka () was an extermination camp, built and operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland during World War II. It was in a forest north-east of Warsaw, south of the village of Treblinka in what is now the Masovian Voivodeship. The camp ...

death camp Nazi Germany used six extermination camps (german: Vernichtungslager), also called death camps (), or killing centers (), in Central Europe during World War II to systematically murder over 2.7 million peoplemostly Jewsin the Holocaust. The v ...

and few Jewish Varsovians were likely to survive, Ringelblum had the archives stored in three milk cans and ten metal boxes, which were then buried in three places in the Ghetto. Two of the canisters, containing thousands of documents, were unearthed on 18 September 1946 and a further ten boxes on 1 December 1950. The third cache is rumored to be buried beneath what is now the Chinese Embassy in

but a search in 2005 failed to locate the missing archival material. Skrzynki i bańki po mleku Archiwum Ringelbluma

On January 19, 1942, an escaped inmate from the

Chełmno extermination camp , known for = , location = Near Chełmno nad Nerem, ''Reichsgau Wartheland'' (German-occupied Poland) , built by = , operated by = , commandant = Herbert Lange, Christian Wirth , original use = , construction = , in operatio ...

Jacob Grojanowski The Grojanowski Report is an eye-witness account about atrocities in the Nazi Chełmno extermination camp, written in 1942 by Polish-Jewish escapee from the camp, Szlama Ber Winer (also known incorrectly as Szlawek Bajler), under the pseudonym of ...

, reached the Warsaw Ghetto, where he gave detailed information about the camp to the Oneg Shabbat group. His report, which became known as the '' Grojanowski Report'', was smuggled out of the ghetto through the channels of the Polish underground, reached London and was published by June. All but three members of the Oyneg Shabbos were murdered in the genocides. Emanuel Ringelblum escaped the ghetto, but continued to return to work on the archives. In 1944 Ringelblum and his family were discovered and were executed along with those who hid them. After the war,

Rokhl Auerbakh Rokhl Auerbakh ( he, רחל אוירבך, also spelled Rokhl Oyerbakh and Rachel Auerbach) (18 December 1903 – 31 May 1976) was an Israeli writer, essayist, historian, Holocaust scholar, and Holocaust survivor. She wrote prolifically in both Pol ...

, one of the three surviving members of Oyneg Shabes, initiated the search for and excavation of the buried chronicles.

Legacy

In 1960, students of Rabbi

Kalonymus Kalman Shapira Kalonymus Kalman Shapira (or Klonimus Kalmish Szapiro) (or "Shapiro," a more common transliteration of the Polish spelling of his name "Szapiro") (20 May 1889–3 November 1943), was the Grand Rabbi of Piaseczno, Poland, who authored a number ...

, The

Piaseczno Piaseczno is a town in east-central Poland with 47,660 inhabitants. It is situated in the Masovian Voivodeship, within the Warsaw metropolitan area, just south of Warsaw, approximately south of its center. It is a popular residential area and ...

Rebbe A Rebbe ( yi, רבי, translit=rebe) or Admor ( he, אדמו״ר) is the spiritual leader in the Hasidic movement, and the personalities of its dynasties.Heilman, Samuel"The Rebbe and the Resurgence of Orthodox Judaism."''Religion and Spiritua ...

, published the Aish Kodesh which were ''derashos'' on the ''parsha'' that the rebbe had delivered between September 1939 and July 1942 in the

and which were discovered with the Ringelblum Archive. In 1999, the Emanuel Ringelblum Archives were listed on the

Memory of the World Register Memory is the faculty of the mind by which data or information is encoded, stored, and retrieved when needed. It is the retention of information over time for the purpose of influencing future action. If past events could not be remembered, ...

by UNESCO. A catalog of the Ringelblum Archive was published in book form in 2009 by the

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) is the United States' official memorial to the Holocaust. Adjacent to the National Mall in Washington, D.C., the USHMM provides for the documentation, study, and interpretation of Holocaust hi ...

and the

, Warsaw; and the entire archive is also available to researchers in digital format at both institutions. The Jewish Historical Institute has published a book series summarizing parts of the archive. The first 10 volumes are: (1) Letters concerning the Holocaust (2) Children — covert teaching in the Warsaw Ghetto (3) Accounts from

Kresy Eastern Borderlands ( pl, Kresy Wschodnie) or simply Borderlands ( pl, Kresy, ) was a term coined for the eastern part of the Second Polish Republic during the interwar period (1918–1939). Largely agricultural and extensively multi-ethnic, it ...

(4) Life and work of

Gela Seksztajn Gela Seksztajn (1907–1943; also known as Gele Seckstein) was a Polish-Jewish artist and painter. She is known mostly for her portraits and other paintings hidden within the Ringelblum Archive, in the Warsaw Ghetto during the Holocaust. The pain ...

(5) The

. Everyday Life (6) The

General Governorate The General Government (german: Generalgouvernement, pl, Generalne Gubernatorstwo, uk, Генеральна губернія), also referred to as the General Governorate for the Occupied Polish Region (german: Generalgouvernement für die be ...

. Accounts and Documents (7) Legacies (8) Territories annexed to the Reich: The Reich District of Danzig-West Prussia, Ciechanów district, Upper Silesia (9) Territories annexed to the Reich:

Wartheland The ''Reichsgau Wartheland'' (initially ''Reichsgau Posen'', also: ''Warthegau'') was a Nazi German ''Reichsgau'' formed from parts of Polish territory annexed in 1939 during World War II. It comprised the region of Greater Poland and adjacent ...

(10) Fate of Jews from

Łódź Łódź, also rendered in English as Lodz, is a city in central Poland and a former industrial centre. It is the capital of Łódź Voivodeship, and is located approximately south-west of Warsaw. The city's coat of arms is an example of canti ...

(1939–1942). In 2007, historian

Samuel Kassow Samuel D. Kassow (born 1946) is an American historian of the history of Ashkenazi Jewry. Early life Kassow was born in a displaced persons' camp in Stuttgart, Germany. His mother survived because a classmate hid her and her sister in a dug-ou ...

published ''Who Will Write Our History? Emanuel Ringelblum, the Warsaw Ghetto, and the Oyneg Shabbes Archive'' listing all accounts of the Oyneg Shabes archives that have been found. 3 Capsules were buried, two were later found after the war. The third capsule is yet to be found, some believe it to be under the Chinese Embassy in Warsaw.

References

External links

Catalogue and guideWarsaw Ghetto Archives (Emanuel Ringelblum Archives)
''Memory of the World'', UNESCO
“Let The World Read And Know” - The Oneg Shabbat Archives
- Online Exhibition from Yad Vashem
Poetry In Hell
The complete collection of poems from the Ringelblum Archives in the original Yiddish with English translations''. https://www.facinghistory.org/resource-library/who-will-write-our-history {{Authority control Memory of the World Register History of Warsaw Warsaw Ghetto Holocaust historical documents 1939 documents 1940 documents 1941 documents 1942 documents 1943 documents