JWST 240 Chapter Notes - Chapter reading: Ringelblum Archive, Samuel Kassow, Jewish Underground
Document Summary
Using the aleynhilf as a base, emanuel ringelblum slowly and methodically assembled a group of collaborators that ranged from the most prominent leaders of pre-war polish jewry to impoverished refugees. The oyneg shabes is not a group of researchers who compete with one another but a united group. Overtime, the oyneg shabes brought together men and women from a wide spectrum of prewar polish jewry. An inner circle raised money and decided what to study and collect. A larger group contributed essays and reports commissioned by the archive. The oyneg shabes had more luck in saving documents than people and thousands of pages of archives survived in tin boxes and milk cans. The fate of the oyneg shabes collective reflected the fare of interwar polish jewry: the destruction was so complete and so calamitous that all too often only disconnected scraps of information remained.
