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The
ghetto archives were established by the group that called
itself "Oneg Shabbat" ("Sabbath
gathering") in the course of the three and a half years
of war. The strange name derived from the fact that the
discussions of this group were held on the Sabbath for the
sake of secrecy the entire institution was called "Oneg
Shabbat." I laid the foundations of the archives in
October 1939....
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," Hirsch W.
[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....
"Oneg
Shabbat" grew and grew, and so much valuable material was
collected that we came to the conclusion that even if the time
had not yet come to consolidate the material we could in any
case make summaries of various problems and important events
in Jewish life. If this plan had been carried out it would
have made a very important contribution to the history of the
Jews in Hitler's time. It is very regrettable that only a part
of the work planned was carried out. There was missing the
quiet atmosphere that is needed for a task of such size and
dimensions. The compilers of "Oneg Shabbat" who
undertook to work on one chapter or another did not find it
possible to complete their work up to the end....
Ringelblum,
II, pp. 76-80. |
