Group of c.10 Autograph and Typed Letters and Postcards Signed

RINGELBLUM, EMANUEL

Warsaw

1922-1930s

PAPERS OF THE HISTORIAN OF THE WARSAW GHETTO Emanuel Ringelblum (1900-1944), a promising young historian, achieved immortality through a tragic confluence of events. Strategically placed in the Warsaw Ghetto as a relief coordinator, Ringelblum harnessed his talents as historian to gathering vital statistics and information concerning the quotidian life of the Nazi-imposed Ghetto. This clandestine operation, codenamed “Oneg Shabbes,” employed numerous workers and researchers. Ringelblum and his family perished during the war. After the war, most, though not all, of the material documenting this most tragic chapter in Jewish history was recovered from the rubble of the Ghetto; Ringelblum and his devoted coworkers had buried the archive in milk cans. The letters in this collection give us an inkling of some of the projects pursued by the budding historian, whether it be the history of the Jews of Lithuania or various topics relating to the Middle Ages. See Heszel Klepfisz, The Inexhaustible Wellspring (2003) pp. 227-35