Emanuel Ringelblum
From: The Terrible Choice
Some Contemporary Jewish Responses to the Holocaust
http://www.jewishgen.org/Yizkor/terrible_choice/ter004.html#Ringelblum
There was a compulsion among the doomed Jews of Europe to record the
anguish of their persecution under Nazi rule. In ghettos and in camps,
in prisons and in hiding, men, women, and even children sensed that
some kind of contemporary record of their suffering was necessary if
the world was to learn the reality of their fate. For some, this need
to write and record became almost the sole motivation for their
continued survival. Nowhere is this better illustrated than in the
life and work of Emanuel Ringelblum and his establishment and
administration of the Oneg Shabbat Archive (also known as the
Ringelblum Archive) in Warsaw.
Emanuel Ringelblum was born in 1900 in Buczacz, also the birthplace of
Simon Wiesenthal. His family had been affluent, but with the coming of
the First World War fell on hard times. At the age of 18 the family
lived in the town of Nowy Sacz, in southern Poland, where Ringelblum
attended the local gymnasium. In autumn 1919 he left home and enrolled
at the University of Warsaw. Having obtained his degree he continued
his education, being granted a doctorate in 1927 for his thesis on the
history of the Jews of Warsaw in the Middle Ages. For several years he
taught history in Jewish schools and was also active in public
affairs, helping to develop sport clubs, choirs, dramatic groups,
music circles, libraries and summer camps. From an early age he was
also a committed member of the "Po'alei Zion Left" political movement
(Marxist-Zionists), a separate party from "Po'alei Zion Right"
(essentially Social Democrat - Zionists).
In 1930 he had become a part-time employee of the Joint Distribution
Committee ("The Joint"), and in November 1938 was sent by them to the
Zbaszyn camp, where 6,000 Jews (Polish citizens expelled from Germany)
were gathered. Ringelblum spent five weeks at the camp, where he
directed relief work, collected testimonies from the deportees, and
gathered information on events in Nazi Germany. His experiences during
this period left an indelible impression.
Life in Poland in the inter-war years was far from easy. In 1934, when
the Yiddish poet, Melekh Ravich, was about to emigrate from the
country, he advised Ringelblum: "Get out. There's no future here."
Ringelblum replied: "You're wrong. There's a great future for Polish
Jewry and I'm going to stay and build it." By the time of the outbreak
of the Second World War Ringelblum had published four books as well as
numerous monographs, and was recognized as being among the most
promising of young historians. At the end of August 1939, Ringelblum
was in Geneva, attending the World Zionist Congress. As it became
increasingly apparent that war between Germany and Poland was
inevitable, some of the Polish delegates chose to seek sanctuary in
other countries. But Ringelblum and the other members of his party
decided to return to Warsaw. He was a devoted husband to his wife,
Yehudit, a school teacher by profession, and a loving father to his
son, Uri. He would never have deserted them.
In the early stages of the German attack on Warsaw, Ringelblum
participated in the activities of the coordinating committee of Jewish
aid organizations. Later, when the Jüdische Soziale Selbsthilfe
(Zydowska Samopomoc Spoleczna: ZSS) for self-help evolved from this
committee, Ringelblum headed the department dedicated to the promotion
of mutual assistance, including help to the needy and shelter to the
deportees and those whose homes had been destroyed. He was responsible
for a chain of soup kitchens serving tens of thousands of soup
portions to the impoverished inhabitants of the ghetto, which was
sealed on 16 November 1940. He explained the significance of
self-help:
"The war presented the public with very important questions. It was
necessary to put an end to the relationships based on political
differences which existed before the war. There had to be a united
front from the left to the right. The Nazi war against the Jews had
become a war of annihilation. It was being waged against every class
and level of the entire Jewish population. As far as the Nazis were
concerned, there was no difference between the Zionists and the
Bundists; they were equally despised… Only by joining forces could we
face such crucial and constant problems."
Ringelblum also organized the so-called "House Committees" (Komitety
Domowe), which were to play a vital part in the strategy of survival.
"Any comparison with the ghetto of the past is inappropriate,"
Ringelblum wrote, "because the ghetto then was the product of
historical processes and corresponded to the general significance of
such developments. But the ghetto today is a concentration camp whose
inmates must support themselves."
In addition to these important activities, Ringelblum worked with the
political underground, particularly the sector devoted to cultural
affairs. Together with Menaham Linder he was extensively involved in
the Idische Kultur Organization (Yiddish Culture Organisation; IKOR).
As indispensable as all of these undertakings were, Ringelblum also
found time for the two projects for which he is best remembered today.
These were the Oneg Shabbat Archive and his personal chronicle of
events. Oneg Shabbat is Hebrew for "Sabbath delight", a reference to
the traditional Sabbath afternoon gathering for study and discussion.
The code name Oneg Shabbat was used because those responsible for
maintaining the archive held their secret meetings on the Sabbath.
Ringelblum recorded the manner in which the Archive evolved and its
purpose:
"I began to collect material on current events in October 1939. As
head of the Jewish Self-Help welfare organization (which was known
then as the Coordinating Committee of the Welfare Organizations), I
had daily personal contact with the life around me. Information
reached me on everything that happened to Jews in Warsaw or the
suburbs. The Coordinating Committee was at that time a branch of the
Joint, and delegations from the smaller towns arrived almost daily to
describe the difficulties experienced by the Jewish population.
Whatever I heard in the course of the day I wrote down in the evening,
and added my observations. In time these daily records made up a
good-sized book of some hundreds of closely written pages, a mirror of
that time. The daily records were replaced first by weekly summaries,
and later monthly summaries. I did this at a time when the number of
colleagues working for the "Oneg Shabbat" had already become
larger....
In May 1940 I decided that it would be proper to find wider support
for this important work. I made a careful choice of people for the job
and as a result the work progressed in the right direction and could
be carried out in sufficient measure. The secretary of "Oneg Shabbat,"
Hersz Wasser, was appointed by the Committee of "Oneg Shabbat" at that
time, and he has continued with the work to the present day....
The creation of the ghetto, and the shutting away of the Jews within
the walls, brought about even greater opportunities for work on the
archives. We reached the conclusion that the Germans took very little
interest in what the Jews were doing amongst themselves. There were
meetings on subjects and in a manner that would not have been possible
before the war. One said everything that came to mind at every meeting
of a house committee, in every soup-kitchen, and on the premises of
every public institution, without interference. The Jewish Gestapo
agents were busy looking for the rich Jews with hoarded goods,
smugglers, etc. Politics interested them little. It went so far that
illegal publications of all political directions appeared almost
openly. In the cafes they were read practically in public; money was
collected for the newspaper fund, there were arguments with opponents
– in a word, people behaved almost like before the war. In conditions
of such "freedom" among the slaves of the ghetto it was not surprising
that the work of "Oneg Shabbat" could develop successfully....
… And so the Jew began to write; everybody was writing – journalists,
writers, teachers, public figures, teenagers and even the children.
Mostly they kept diaries, in which they described the tragic events
unfolding before their eyes as the personal experiences they indeed
were."
Ringelblum was the inspiration behind the creation of the Archive. As
early as June 1933, following Hitler's attainment of power, he had
begun a collection of documents, photographs and other material
concerning events in Germany and the promulgation of anti-Jewish
legislation. Arguably, this was the seed from which "Oneg Shabbat"
grew. The secretary and one of only two surviving members of the "Oneg
Shabbat" group (the other being Rachel Auerbach), Hersz Wasser,
recorded:
"Every item, every article, be it long or short, had to pass through
Dr Ringelblum's hands… For weeks and months he spent the nights poring
over the manuscripts, adding his comments and instructions… The
collaborators of the Archive were considered soldiers of the
underground army. It is not surprising that the secret archive was
appropriated by the fighting ghetto. The Archive established the press
department for the Jewish Fighting Organization and for editors of
underground newsletters both in the ghetto and on the Aryan side."
The Archive was to reach enormous proportions. As Ringelblum noted,
"the drive to write down one's memoirs is powerful." By early 1942, so
much material had been gathered that it was decided to create a
synthesis, a project with the title "Two and a Half Years",
representing the period since September 1939 during which Poland had
been occupied by the Germans. A book of some 2,000 pages was planned,
divided into four sections: 1. general; 2. economic; 3. cultural –
scientific – literary – artistic; 4. social welfare. Apart from
underground newspapers published by different political parties,
letters received in the ghetto considered to be of interest, minutes
of meetings, reports on the activities of Jewish public organizations,
and the testimonies of Jews from other ghettos or labour camps
arriving in Warsaw, the Archive sponsored papers on many other
subjects. These included the role of Jewish women in the war; children
and youth in the ghetto; problems of health; welfare and self-help;
humour and folklore; relations between Poles and Jews; relations
between Germans and Jews; education; cultural activities; religious
affairs; the theatre in the ghetto; political and underground
organizations; the smuggling of food; and the secret economy.
Of the two parts of the Archive that have survived, the first contains
1,505 files and the second 558 files. Each file consists of as many as
a dozen documents, varying in length from a single page to works of
many pages. The first part comprises 20,740 pages, the second part
7,906 pages. Some pages were written in Polish, others in Yiddish,
Hebrew or German. Also included in the Archive were several dozen
photographs, as well as paintings and drawings, and the diaries and
notes of Ringelblum, Abraham Lewin, Peretz Opoczynski, Shimon
Huberband and others.
By January 1940, starvation had begun to stalk the ghetto. Ringelblum
noted that there were fifty to seventy deaths every day as against a
pre-war daily average mortality of ten. Despite the efforts of the
ZSS, the loss of life in the ghetto remained alarmingly high. In early
1941, Ringelblum commented that walking down Lezno Street, "you come
across people lying at the street corner, frozen, begging… Almost
daily people are falling dead or unconscious in the middle of the
street. It no longer makes so direct an impression… Child in arms, a
mother begs – the child appears dead. " In the house in which
Ringelblum lived, a father, mother, and son all died from hunger in
the course of a single day. "Pinkiert, the King of the Dead, keeps
opening new branches of his funeral parlours," Ringelblum bitterly
recorded.
A report dated 26 September 1941 by Heinz Auerswald, Commissar of the
Warsaw Ghetto, had stated that the legally supplied foodstuffs were
far from enough to effectively counter the acute starvation in the
ghetto. If there was to be any successful large-scale exploitation of
Jewish labour, it was necessary to considerably increase the food
supply. Ringelblum noted:
"… Relief work doesn't solve the problem; it only keeps people going a
little while. The people have to die anyway. It lengthens suffering,
but cannot save them… It remains a proven fact that the people fed in
the soup-kitchens will all die if they eat nothing but the soup
supplied and the dry rationed bread. The question thus arises whether
it would not serve the purpose better to reserve the available money
for selected individuals, for those who are socially productive, for
the intellectual elite; etc. But…why should one pronounce judgment on
artisans, labourers and other useful persons… Only the ghetto and the
war have turned them into non-people, into scrap, into human dregs,
candidates for mass graves. There is left a tragic dilemma. What shall
one do? Shall one [hand out the food] with little spoons to everybody,
and then no one will live, or in generous handfuls to just a few…?"
It was attempted to include as many German documents as possible in
the Archive concerning the deportation and murder of Jews, not only
from Warsaw, but also from other towns and cities. In January 1942, a
man named Szlamek Bajler (also known as Ya'akov Grojanowski) escaped
from the Chelmno death camp to the Warsaw Ghetto. He provided the
initial report about Chelmno to Ringelblum and Wasser. Because the
Gestapo was looking for Bajler, Ringelblum sent him to the Zamosc
Ghetto where Bajler's sister-in-law lived. When the first deportations
to Belzec began, Bajler sent post cards to Ringelblum and Wasser in
which he provided information about the extermination camp. He wrote
in a combination of Polish and in Yiddish using Polish lettering: "In
Belzec iz Beit Olam wie in Chelmno" ("In Belzec there is a cemetery
[literally `Home of Eternity'] as in Chelmno"). Bajler was the first
person to officially inform Ringelblum about Belzec and its purpose.
During the first Aktion in Zamosc on 14 April 1942, Bajler was
deported to Belzec together with his sister-in-law. The son of his
sister-in-law sent a message to Wasser confirming their deportation.
Hersz Wasser wrote: "… The leadership of the underground in the ghetto
charged `Oneg Shabbat' with the task of preparing various memoranda
for consumption abroad, e.g., on the death camp at Chelmno (March
1942), on the Aktion in Lublin (April 1942), on the state of the
Jewish population in the Nazi-occupied areas (July 1942), and later
on, in November 1942, the first exhaustive description of the initial
stage of the liquidation of Warsaw Jewry."
In April 1942, Ringelblum had recorded that "reports about
extermination squads that are wiping complete Jewish settlements off
the face of the earth" were prevalent. As the intended annihilation of
the Jews became more evident, it was decided to hide the invaluable
material contained in the Archive in a series of secure places. The
collection was sealed inside metal containers and milk cans and
concealed within the ghetto in August 1942, and in March and April
1943. Those who carried out this task did not survive. On 3 August
1942, a schoolteacher and archivist, Izrael Lichtensztajn, assisted by
two of his former pupils, Dawid Graber and Nachum Grzybacz, buried ten
metal boxes and milk cans at Nowolipki 68. Included in the buried
documents was the testimony of Abraham Krzepicki, who had escaped from
Treblinka and provided the first eye-witness account of the
extermination camp. 19 year-old Graber wrote a note and included it
with the interred Archive:
"The men who buried the archives know that they may not survive to see
the moment when the treasure is dug up and the whole truth proclaimed…
What we were unable to scream out to the world, we have concealed
under the ground… One thing I am proud of, namely, that in these
disastrous and horrible days I had been chosen to help bury the
treasure, in order that you may know of the tortures and murders of
the Nazi tyrants… Blessed be those whom fate saved from suffering."
Lichtensztajn's last will and testament was also included:
"I've put my whole soul into this archive. I've chosen the hiding
place. I don't ask for any thanks. I don't want a memorial or praise.
I just want to be remembered. I'd like my people, my brothers and
sisters overseas, to know where my bones have been taken to. I want my
wife to be remembered: Gella Sechstein, a talented artist. The past
three years she worked with children in the ghetto as a teacher. She
designed stage sets and costumes for the children's theatre. Both of
us now prepare to meet our death. I also want my little daughter to be
remembered: Margalit is twenty months old today. She has fully
mastered Yiddish and speaks it perfectly. At nine months she began to
speak clearly. In intelligence she equals children of four years. I'm
not boasting. You could ask the teachers yourself. I don't lament my
own life nor that of my wife, but I pity this lovely little talented
girl. She, too, deserves to be remembered. And finally, we are the
redeeming sacrifice for the Jewish people. I believe that the nation
will survive. We the Jews of eastern Europe are the redeemers of the
people of Israel."
That first section of the Archive was recovered on 18 September 1946.
The second part was found nearby four years later, on 1 December 1950.
A third part, which included material on the organization and
activities of the underground and the Jewish Fighting Organization was
buried at Swietojerska 34, but has never been discovered, and is now
presumed lost forever. It is probable that there were also a number of
other containers buried and never subsequently recovered. The
surviving Oneg Shabbat Archive is kept by Zydowski Instytut
Historyczny (Jewish Historical Institute, Warsaw; ZIH), and represents
the most important single source for the history of Polish Jewry
during the war and the Shoah. It was created through the immense
courage and devotion of an unknown number of individuals, but perhaps
most of all through the dedication of its founder and guiding light,
Emanuel Ringelblum.
Ringelblum's fate was tragic. He had repeatedly been invited to
shelter on the "Aryan" side of Warsaw, and in March 1943, together
with his wife Yehudit and 13 year-old son Uri, he finally did so. On
the eve of Passover 1943 he returned to the ghetto alone, just as the
uprising was beginning. What happened to him in the ensuing fighting
is not known, but in July 1943 he was found in the camp at Trawniki by
two members of the underground, who managed to extricate him from the
camp and return him to Warsaw disguised as a railway worker. Together
with his family and 38 other Jews, he hid in a bunker in "Aryan"
Warsaw. Ringelblum was one of nineteen former Jewish underground
leaders whom the Polish Government-in-Exile in London agreed to
rescue. By the time it was possible to attempt such a rescue, only
three of the nineteen remained alive. All three survivors refused the
opportunity of escaping. They informed the Polish underground: "We
must fulfil our duty to society."
On 7 March 1944, the hiding place was betrayed, and the captives taken
to the Pawiak Prison. Another Jewish prisoner in Pawiak, Julian
Hirszhaut, became involved in an attempt to move Ringelblum from the
condemned cells into those holding prisoners expected to be sent to
work for the Germans as tailors and shoemakers. Hirszhaut recalled how
he had managed to enter the cell where Ringelblum was being held:
"The cell was jammed with people; apparently these were the Jews whom
the Germans had seized with Ringelblum in the bunker. Ringelblum
himself was sitting on a straw mattress close to the wall... On his
lap he was holding a handsome boy. This was his son, Uri... I told him
that we were making attempts to take him in with us.
'And what will happen to him?' he asked, pointing his finger at his
son. 'And what will happen to my wife who is in the women's section?'
What could I answer him? We all knew well that even if we succeeded in
taking Ringelblum out of there and bringing him to us as a shoemaker
or tailor, his family would still be doomed. My silence conveyed the
truth to him, and he added right away: 'Then I prefer to go the way of
Kiddush Ha-Shem (The Sanctification of God's Name) together with
them.'
Later he told me how he had been tortured by the Gestapo... In the
middle of our conversation he suddenly asked: 'Is death so hard to
bear?' And then, a little later, he went on with a voice broken from
despair: 'What is this little boy guilty of?' – and he again pointed
his finger at his son - 'It breaks my heart to think of him.'
I stood helpless before Ringelblum, I did not know what to answer, and
a wave of sorrow swept over my heart."
A few days later, Ringelblum, his family, and the other Jews who had
been captured together with them in the bunker were executed in the
ruins of the ghetto. The person who had betrayed the location of the
bunker, 18 year-old Jan Lakinski, was later sentenced to death by a
tribunal in Warsaw.
Ringelblum kept his own personal record, not so much as a diary, but
rather as a chronicle of events. Unlike most diaries, the author is
not placed at the centre of the matters reported; instead the notes
reflect edicts, incidents, rumours, currency exchange rates, news of
other communities, even jokes circulating within the ghetto, as well
as many other topics, which taken together provide a comprehensive
portrait of everyday life and death in the ghetto. It is impossible to
be certain of Ringelblum's intentions, but it seems probable that the
often abbreviated entries were in effect an aide-mémoire for an
intended future history of the Nazi persecution of the Jews. The book,
covering the period from January 1940 to December 1942, was published
after the war as "Notes from the Warsaw Ghetto". Both in his chronicle
and in the Oneg Shabbat Archive he was determined to preserve an
accurate picture of ghetto life and death. Maintaining records was the
historian's duty to posterity, particularly as there could be no
doubting Nazi intentions. Following a discussion with friends in June
1942 about the best option were it possible to send somebody from the
ghetto to the outside world, Ringelblum wrote that the conclusion
reached was that "the most important thing was to arouse the world to
the horror of the extermination we are now suffering. There was no
point in even considering the question as to whether or not this would
worsen our condition. We have nothing to lose. The extermination is
being executed according to a plan and schedule prepared in advance.
Only a miracle can save us: the sudden end of the war. Otherwise, we
are lost." Within little more than a month, the deportations from
Warsaw to Treblinka had begun.
Using information gathered by Oneg Shabbat and transmitted to England,
on 26 June the BBC broadcast details of the fate of Polish Jewry. The
figure of 700,000 dead was mentioned, together with the promise of
retribution for the perpetrators. The transmission of these reports
provided Ringelblum with a rare moment of triumph:
"Friday, 26 June 1942 has been a great day for `Oneg Shabbat." This
morning, the English radio broadcast about the fate of Polish Jewry.
They told about everything we know so well: about Slonim and Vilna,
Lemberg and Chelmno, and so forth… The `Oneg Shabbat' group has
fulfilled a great historical mission… I do not know who of our group
will survive… but one thing is clear to all of us. Our toils and
tribulations, our devotion and constant terror have not been in vain…
It is not important whether or not the revelation of the incredible
slaughter of Jews will have the desired effect – whether the
methodical liquidation of entire Jewish communities will stop. One
thing we know – we have fulfilled our duty… Nor will our deaths be
meaningless, like the deaths of tens of thousands of Jews."
Following the broadcast, the optimistic among the population believed
that the Germans would cease to carry out further mass killings. But
Ringelblum was more realistic; "No compassion can be expected from the
Germans. Whether we live or die depends on how much time they have. If
they have enough time we are lost. If salvation comes soon, we are
saved."
Ringelblum provided remarkable insights into the reaction of the
Jewish population and their self-deception as persecution turned to
annihilation. On "everyday" death in the ghetto he recorded:
"One of the problems of great import is the passivity of the Jewish
masses, dying without a whimper. Why are they so quiet? Why are
fathers, mothers, and all the children dying without protest? ...
Various reasons can be found. Intimidation by the (German) authorities
is so great that people are scared to raise their heads, fearing mass
terror against the hungry in case of any turbulence. This is the
reason why the socially responsible remain silent, passive, so as not
to cause turbulence in the ghetto. Others, having a little initiative,
find some sort of accommodation… The shops and the orders that came
from German cells provide employment for large numbers of workers and
artisans. Some… trade in the streets... The rest are passive, helpless
people who are simply dying out... The dying are mainly refugees from
out of town... After a little shouting they keep quiet, become
resigned, and simply wait to die, as if yearning for the moment when
death will deliver them from suffering."
And on the reaction as the deportations began:
"... A legend began to grow up about letters from the deportees,
particularly from certain places – Brzesc, Kowel, Pinsk, etc. Hard as
you might try, you could never get to anyone who had actually read a
letter with his own eyes. It was always a third person who had heard
from someone else that so-and-so had read the letter. These letters
were always phrased in exactly the same way and appeared in the same
form... A letter like this never contained details about the living
conditions of the deportees or how they occupied their time. But they
always requested money and belongings...
... Such letters were always delivered by Polish Christians who
'managed to reach (the proper address) after overcoming various
difficulties.' The amicable Poles were willing to take money and
clothing back for the deportees. They were also prepared to aid in the
search for others who had been deported – naturally, in return for the
payment of hundreds of thousands of zlotys. And there were people who
paid out tens of thousands of zlotys to find their closest relatives…
But even though such news from relatives was exposed as a swindle time
and time again, others could always be found who were willing to pay a
high price for the slightest news of their loved ones... These
swindlers play on the popular imagination, which constantly dreams –
and will not stop dreaming – that the hundreds of thousands and
millions of deportees are alive, are working, and will even return..."
In a text that was written after the initial deportations, Ringelblum
expanded on this phenomenon:
"I am deeply convinced that even today, when the meagre remnant of the
Jews of Warsaw know about Treblinka, there are still hundreds and
perhaps even thousands of people who nevertheless believe in the bogus
reports about an alleged children's camp. Thus just a few days ago,
rumours circulated about 2,000 children who had returned from
Treblinka. I believe that years after this war ends, when all the
secrets about the death camps have long been exposed, wretched mothers
will continue to dream that the children torn from them are still
alive somewhere in the depths of Russia..."
Ringelblum commented bitterly that the general Polish response to the
44 day-long Grosse Aktion had been complete indifference. No call for
resistance, no word of encouragement, no assurance of support. Yet he
always tried to present a balanced picture. For example, he was as
equally condemnatory of the ghetto's Jewish Police as he was of Polish
fraudsters and anti-Semites:
"The Jewish Police had a bad reputation even before the start of the
'resettlements'... Unlike the Polish Police, which did not take part
in abductions for the labour camps, the Jewish Police did engage in
this dirty work. The police were also notorious for their shocking
corruption and lack of morality… But their meanness reached a pinnacle
in the course of the deportations... The police became mentally
conditioned to doing this dirty work and, therefore, performed it with
perfection... There are people who maintain that each society has the
police it deserves, that the malaise of helping the occupier slaughter
300,000 Jews infected the entire society and is not limited to the
police, who are only a mirror of our society. Other people argue that
the police is the haven of the morally weak psychological types, who
do everything in their power to survive the difficult times, who
believe that the end determines all means, and the end is to survive
the war – even if survival is bound up with the taking of other
people's lives."
The police, of course, were placed in an impossible position. They had
to produce a daily quota of Jews for deportation. If they did not,
they and their families might be deported instead. But that terrible
choice could not account for the brutality and venality of the police.
"The Jewish police were without mercy. You could be the most worthy of
persons, if you didn't have the ransom money, or relatives to pay the
asking price, you would be sent away." This conduct puzzled
Ringelblum: "Where did Jews get such murderous violence? When in our
history did we ever before raise so many hundreds of killers, capable
of snatching children off the street, throwing them on wagons,
dragging them to the Umschlagplatz?"
In contrast, on 26 April 1941, Ringelblum had recorded that a
delegation of the ghetto police in Warsaw refused to continue catching
Jews for work in labour camps. Some of the police declared that they
were prepared to go to the camps themselves rather than have to
condemn others to do so. Although the Jewish police were universally
detested by the ghetto population, it is an example of how, in his
writing as in his life, Ringelblum constantly attempted to be
even-handed in his presentation of evidence. However, even he found it
difficult to find anything good to say about the Judenrat, who were
inevitably, and often unfairly, presented by him in an unfavourable
light. Under the heading "Allies in the Camp of the Enemy," Ringelblum
noted "betrayal by the Jewish Council." On the death of Czerniakow,
the Chairman of the Warsaw Judenrat, Ringelblum briefly and somewhat
callously commented: "The suicide of Czerniakow – too late, a sign of
weakness – should have called for resistance – a weak man." But these
comments were made after tens of thousands had died of disease and
starvation, and during or immediately following the Grosse Aktion,
which had accounted for more than three –quarters of the ghetto's
inhabitants. Allowances should be made for Ringelblum's probable state
of mind. It is difficult to take a detached and balanced view when you
have been living in a charnel house for three years.
After the deportations began in July 1942, Ringelblum became an
advocate of armed resistance through the Zydowska Organizacja Bojowa
(ZOB - Jewish Fighting Organization.) But ever the historian,
Ringelblum continued writing to the end. He had already penned
biographical notes on many outstanding Jewish personalities, including
Yizhak Gitterman, Mordechai Anielewicz, Ignacy Schiper, Meir Balaban,
and Janusz Korczak. Now, whilst in hiding in "Aryan" Warsaw for the
second time, he completed his last two books. The first was a history
of the Trawniki camp (a book which did not survive the war), the
second a history of Polish-Jewish relations during the Second World
War. In the latter he was scathing about most Poles indifference, at
best, to the fate of the Jews, which he attributed to generations of
anti-Semitism. Recording conversations overhead on the streets of
Warsaw following the uprising, Ringelblum felt that "the boldest
dreams of the Polish anti-Semites had been fulfilled and Warsaw was
rid of Jews." But at the same time he was unstinting in his admiration
of those Poles who had endangered their own lives in order to save
Jews:
"Idealists from among both the educated and the working classes, who
saved Jews at the risk of their lives and with boundless
self-sacrifice – there are thousands such in Warsaw and the whole
country. The names of these people, on whom the Poland to come will
bestow insignia for their human acts, will forever remain engraved in
our memories, the names of heroes who saved thousands of human beings
from destruction in the fight against the greatest enemy of the human
race."
Among the Poles specifically mentioned by Ringelblum in his book as
rescuers of Jews were Teodor Pajewski, who had helped him to escape
from Trawniki; Mieczyslaw Wolski, in whose bunker he had hidden in
"Aryan" Warsaw, and who was shot by the Germans after the bunker was
discovered; and Julian Kudasiewicz, Gerhard Gadejski, Professor
Tadeusz Kotarbinski, Pawel Harmusszko, Witold Benedyktowicz, and
Ignacy Kasprzykowski.
Heroism can take many forms. The soldier who displays his courage on
the battlefield may be considered the most obvious example. But there
is also the quiet, passive heroism of the individual who resists, not
with the rifle but with the pen. There were many such men and women
among the condemned Jews of Poland. None exemplifies this gallantry
and dedication more than Emanuel Ringelblum, whose legacy remains the
body of work he tried so desperately to preserve and which will
forever remain his memorial.
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Sources and Further Reference:
Gilbert, Martin. The Holocaust – The Jewish Tragedy, William Collins
Sons & Co. Limited, London, 1986
Grynberg, Michal, ed., Words to Outlive Us - Eyewitness Accounts from
the Warsaw Ghetto, Granta Books, London 2003
Gutman, Yisrael, ed. Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, Macmillan
Publishing Company, New York, 1990
Gutman, Yisrael. The Jews of Warsaw 1939-1943, Indiana University
Press, Bloomington and Indianapolis, 1989
Gutman, Yisrael. Resistance: The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, Houghton
Mifflin Company, Boston and New York, 1994
Ringelblum, Emanuel. Notes from the Warsaw Ghetto, Schocken Books, New
York, 1974
Ringelblum, Emanuel. Polish- Jewish Relations During the Second World
War, Northwestern University Press, 1992
Trunk, Isaiah. Judenrat – The Jewish Councils in Eastern Europe under Nazi Occupation, University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, 1996
Nazi Occupation, University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, 1996
www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org
www.jewishgates.com
www.centropa.org
www.raoulwallenberg.net
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