Until The Last Jew... Until The Last Name

Dr. Emanuel Ringelbum and his wife Yehudit with their son Uri shortly after his birth

Pictured here is Dr. Emanuel Ringelbum and his wife Yehudit with their son Uri shortly after his birth.

Emanuel Ringelblum was a Jewish historian and founder and director of the secret Oneg Shabbat Archive in the Warsaw Ghetto. The archivists would collect reports and testimonies by Jews who had come to the ghetto to seek help from the self-aid organizations. Ringelblum would collect information during the day and write notes at night. He and his colleagues collected data and wrote articles about towns, villages, the ghetto and the resistance movement. They also documented the deportation and extermination of Polish Jewry.

The Oneg Shabbat materials were preserved in three milk cans. One of the sites was uncovered in 1946, and a second in 1950. The archival materials and Ringelblum’s own written chronicles constitute the most comprehensive and valuable source of information we have concerning the Jews in German-occupied Poland and the significance of the events taking place.

Ringelblum went into hiding with his family in the Aryan side of Warsaw, but in March 1944 their hide-out was discovered. Shortly after their capture, Emanuel, Yehudit and Uri Ringelblum, along with 35 other Jews were executed in the ruins of the ghetto.

Emmanuel Ringelblum’s Last Request, March 1, 1944
Introduction by Israel Gutman