The Jewish Historical Institute ( or ''ŻIH''; ), also known as the Emanuel Ringelblum Jewish Historical Institute, is a public cultural and research institution in

Warsaw Warsaw, officially the Capital City of Warsaw, is the capital and List of cities and towns in Poland, largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the Vistula, River Vistula in east-central Poland. Its population is officially estimated at ...

, Poland, chiefly dealing with the

history of Jews in Poland The history of the Jews in Poland dates back at least 1,000 years. For centuries, Poland was home to the largest and most significant Jews, Jewish community in the world. Poland was a principal center of Jewish culture, because of the long pe ...

and Jewish culture.

History

The Jewish Historical Institute was created in 1947 as a continuation of the , founded in 1944. The Jewish Historical Institute Association is the corporate body responsible for the building and the institute's holdings. The Institute falls under the jurisdiction of the

Ministry of Culture and National Heritage The Ministry of Culture and National Heritage () is a ministry within Polish government led by the Minister of Culture and National Heritage responsible for national heritage preservation and Polish culture promotion. Ministry oversees state o ...

. In 2009 it was named after Emanuel Ringelblum and became a public cultural institution. The institute is a repository of documentary materials relating to the Jewish historical presence in Poland. It is also a centre for academic research, study and the dissemination of knowledge about the history and culture of Polish Jewry. The most valuable part of the collection is the

Warsaw Ghetto The Warsaw Ghetto (, officially , ; ) was the largest of the Nazi ghettos during World War II and the Holocaust. It was established in November 1940 by the Nazi Germany, German authorities within the new General Government territory of Occupat ...

Archive, known as the Ringelblum Archive (collected by the Oyneg Shabbos). It contains some 6,000 documents (some 30,000 pages). Other important collections concerning World War II include testimonies (mainly of Jewish survivors of

the Holocaust The Holocaust (), known in Hebrew language, Hebrew as the (), was the genocide of History of the Jews in Europe, European Jews during World War II. From 1941 to 1945, Nazi Germany and Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy ...

), memoirs and diaries, documentation of the Joint and Jewish Self-Help (welfare organizations active in Poland under the occupation), and documents from the Jewish Councils ( Judenräte). The section on the documentation of Jewish historical sites holds about 40 thousand photographs concerning Jewish life and culture in Poland. The institute has published a series of documents from the Ringelblum Archive, as well as numerous wartime memoirs and diaries. Also, for over 60 years now, the institute has been publishing an academic journal renamed in 2001 as the ' (), registered on the Master Journal List of outstanding academic journals in 2011. In 2021, Monika Krawczyk, a lawyer and the managing director of the Foundation for the Preservation of Jewish Heritage in the years 2004–2019, was appointed the Director of the Jewish Historical Institute by the Minister of Culture and National Heritage. In 2024, a group of Institute employees sent a letter to the new Minister of Culture and National Heritage, calling the director "authoritarian and incompetent".

Directors

* Nachman Blumental, 1947 to 1949 * , 1949 to 1966 * Artur Eisenbach, 1966 to 1968 * Szymon Datner, 1969 to 1970 * Feliks Tych, 1995 to 2006 * Eleonora Bergman, 2007-2011 * Paweł Śpiewak, 2011-2020 * , 2021-2024 * Michał Trębacz, acting director since 2024

References

{{Authority control 1947 establishments in Poland Buildings and structures in Warsaw History institutes History organisations based in Poland Jewish studies research institutes Jewish history in Warsaw Research institutes established in 1947 Research institutes in Poland Jewish organisations based in Poland

History

Directors

Further reading

References