Photoessay #2493 - Two books about the Warsaw Ghetto

Recently I read two books at the same time

"Who will Write our History?  Emanuel Ringelblum, the Warsaw Ghetto, and the Oyneg Shabes Archive" by Samuel Kassow

and

"Notes from the Warsaw Ghetto" by Emanuel Ringelblum

One is about the other, to some extent though the Oyneg Shabes Archive contained much more than just Emanuel Ringelbaum's notes.

Emanuel Ringelblum, a Polish historian started a project to document the Polish Jewish community, the Warsaw Ghetto and the German occupiers from within the Ghetto.  He feared that neither he nor Polish Jewry would survive.  Neither did.  More Jews lived in Poland that in any other country before WWII.

He oversaw a large secret project of essays, interviews, manuscripts, notices and eyewitness accounts.  Several times during the project, the papers were buried.  Not all have been found.

Much of the time in the Ghetto, the Jewish community tried to adjust to their new surroundings, to keep their community and families intact.  They felt, this was temporary, just another persecution, Germany would soon lose the war.  But the Jews thought that in 1941; liberation would not come until 1945, way too late for the Jews of Warsaw.

Ringelblum ran a large social service agency from within the ghetto.  Not until the end, after the great deportation of July 1942, did he actively support the building of armed resistance.  He raised funds and worked feverishly to help the fighting organization accumulate their measly collection of arms.

He also exhibited the behavior of many adults.  Even if they had opportunity to escape, they refused to leave their families, their spouses or their children.  They could not get away and leave their families to die.

Both books were excellent.  So rewarding to read a well researched book along with the primary source.

This picture shows what all feared.  The Great Deportation of July 1942.  By that time, everyone knew where these trains were headed.  Certain death in Treblinka.  But the population was so terrorized, starved and brutalized, they could put up little resistance.

Picture from www.HolocaustResearchProject.org  used without permission