|
Emmanuel Ringelblum
(1900-1944) Historian, teacher and
community activist born in Buczacz. Ringelblum studied at the University
of Warsaw, where he also received his doctorate. He worked with the
Yidisher Visnshaftlecher Institute in Wilno. As a member of the Poalei
Zion-Left party, he organized Jewish schools and took part in the work
of the Central Jewish School Organization. He lectured in
Hebrew-language high schools and worked with Jewish student
organizations. He was heavily involved in community work, and was active
for example in the Central No-Interest Loan Offices (Tsekabe), where he
was also the editor of that institution's publication, Folkshilf.
In 1923, he co-founded the Circle of Jewish Historians in Warsaw.
That circle, which later continued its activities in the framework of
the Jewish Research Institute (YIVO) in Warsaw, was comprised of
independent historians and students from various disciplines in the
humanities. That group issued an occasional academic publication of
which Ringelblum was editor.
Although Ringelblum's range of academic interests was broad, his
real focus was on the history of the Polish Jews and on Polish-Jewish
relations. His works include "Zydzi w Warszawie od czasow
najdawniejszych do ich wygnania w 1527" (Jews in Warsaw from The
Earliest Times to their Expulsion in 1527) (1932) and "Zydzi w Powstaniu
Kosciuszkowskim" (Jews in the Kosciuszko Uprising) (1938). His works
demonstrated the complicated nature of Polish history and the various
factors that had contributed to the development of both mutual sympathy
and antagonism between the two peoples.
His passion for scholarship remained with him until the end. During
the war, in the Warsaw ghetto, he not only participated in the
underground and organized Jewish community self-help programs, but also
created a ghetto archive that was hidden underground (known as the
"Ringelblum Archive"). The archive documented the life, struggle and
death of the Jewish people during the German occupation. The archive was
conceived as a documentation center-a place where materials from
various sources could be gathered. The documents, artwork, memoirs, and
historical, economic, social and literary works it contains are an
invaluable source for information about the social and cultural life of
the Warsaw ghetto's Jewish residents, as well as about their tragic
fate. Ringelblum's personal notes and essays from October 1939 until his
deportation to a camp in April 1943 have also survived.
Ringelblum prepared reports about the situation of the Jewish
population for the leaders of the underground state. They were given to
the Allies with the aim of alerting people in the free world to what was
happening. Ringelblum belonged to a small group of conspirators who
were preparing for an armed revolt in the Warsaw ghetto. After the great
deportation from the ghetto in the summer of 1942, Ringelblum was
officially employed in the carpentry workshop at 68 Nowolipki Street. In
that building's cellar, buried in old milk cans, two sets of archival
materials were hidden. In late February 1943, he managed to leave the
ghetto with his wife, Judith, and their son Uri; they hid in an
underground hiding place at 84 Grojecka Street specially constructed by
Wladyslaw Marczak. The day before the uprising, Ringelblum returned to
the ghetto. During the fighting, he was deported to an SS camp in
Trawniki. Thanks to joint action by the Jewish and Polish underground, a
railwayman, Teodor Pajewski (a liaison officer from the Council for Aid
to the Jews, Zegota) and Roza Kossower (a Jewish woman) managed to get
him out of the camp. Ringelblum, dressed as a railwayman, was
transported to Warsaw. For a time, he was in hiding in an apartment on 2
Radzyminska Street; he moved a short while later to the hiding place at
84 Grojecka, where he remained until March 7, 1944, when the hiding
place was reported to the authorities. All those who had been hiding
there were taken to Pawiak prison and shot.
|
Ringelblum's own books are also a source of
information about the situation in the ghetto, including instances of
anti-Semitism and stupidity, paralyzing fear, heroism and an account of
his own time in hiding on Grojecka Street. His works include "Kronika
getta warszawskiego" (Chronicle of the Warsaw Ghetto), edited and with
an introduction by A. Eisenbach (Warsaw, 1988); and "Stosunki
polsko-zydowskie w czasie drugiej wojny swiatowej" (Polish-Jewish
Relations during the Second World War) (Warsaw: Czytelnik, 1988), with
comments and introduction by A. Eisenbach. They are worth reading in
their entirety, as they provide insights into the everyday lives of
people during those inhuman times. Ringelblum, with a historian's
realism, matter-of-factly presents all manner of details about life at
that time, yet remains fully aware of the hell that his generation was
living through. He described his own time in hiding as follows:
"When Jews began to be deported from Warsaw and people began looking
for places to hide on the Aryan side, a certain group requested that
the M. family build a shelter. (...) Mr. and Mrs. M. had taken in a poor
Jewish seamstress, without remuneration, treating her like their own
child. People assumed that the M. family had all the necessary moral
attributes that would allow them to be trusted with the lives of several
dozen people. (...) At the shelter's helm is its "boss", Mr. Wladyslaw
M., 37 years old, a gardener by profession. He decided to save the lives
of dozens of Jews, against the will of the occupiers who had passed a
death sentence on them. P. W. is devoted heart and soul to his dearest
"Krysia" (that was what the shelter was called, alluding to the word
kryjowka-"hiding place"). (...) And there were other problems: how to
feed several dozen people so as not to rouse anyone's suspicions?
Ingenuous Mr. M. and his no less resourceful sisters found a way. His
sisters rented a grocery shop, which would purchase the goods needed to
supply "Krysia". (...) Mr. M. had to sever many of his social and
business contacts because of the shelter. He could not allow too many
friends or clients to come into the garden, because guests might notice
something suspicious, something that he might not have foreseen even in
his best-laid plans for the shelter. (...) Mrs. M. is "Krysia's" heart,
Mr. M. is its brain, Mrs. M.'s grandson, Mariusz, is its eyes and
"Krysia's" guardian angel, its constant companion. His function is very
simple, but the lives of 34 people depend on it. Mariusz brings food to
"Krysia", takes out buckets, etc., but most important of all, he stands
watch all day long, so no one gets too close to it. (...) He has to
organize things and direct the work in the garden so that no outsiders
get too close to the shelter. He must constantly be aware of whether any
of "Krysia's" residents are visible from the roofs of neighboring
buildings. He also has to find solutions to problems like finding a
place for the garbage, dishwater, fecal matter, etc. Every day matters,
but what important ones for 34 living people. (...) When the ghetto was
burning in April, when the modern Neros were turning human beings into
living torches, when red posters were screaming from all the walls:
"Poles! Woe to any of you who are hiding Jews. We will do the same to
you as we have done to them," at "Krysia", people were in the depths of
despair. (...) When the weak in spirit had succumbed to the German
threats and refused to let Jews continue living in their hiding places,
thus condemning them to a certain death, the M. family stood by their
decision to save Jews."
From "Stosunki polsko-zydowskie w czasie drugiej wojny swiatowej"
(Polish-Jewish Relations during the Second World War) (Warsaw:
Czytelnik, 1988), with comments and introduction by A. Eisenbach, pp.
159-164.
*Family M. = Marczak family
The documents collected by Ringelblum were found after the war and
deposited in the Jewish Historical Institute. They constitute the
fullest documentation of the fate of the Jews in the ghettos of occupied
Europe, and also in some of the camps.
(asw/cm)
|
|
MAIN PAGE