Emanuel Ringelblum: The Man and the Historian

This publication comprises articles presented at the international conference held at Yad Vashem on the 60th anniversary of Ringelblum’s murder by the Germans. The articles focus on Ringelblum’s life and activities, addressing the private man, the intellectual, and the universal humanist. They incorporate his worldview, his writings, his social activities and the momentous venture he founded in the Warsaw ghetto – the Oyneg Shabes Archives. This volume also includes the last letters of Emanuel Ringelblum and his wife J?zia Yehudit, written in their hiding place in the "Aryan" sector of Warsaw, to their friends Adolf Abraham and Batya Temkin-Berman. The letters depict life in the bunker and reflect Ringelblum’s attempts at self-help as well as his unremitted historical work. The letter written on March 1, 1944, a few days before his hiding place was discovered, constitutes Emanuel Ringelblum’s last will and testament. “The importance of Ringelblum’s diary and writings – so important that his words should be studied in Israeli schools – lies in his complex vision of those terrible days which tested Jews and Poles under the Nazi occupation.” [Miri Paz, Makor Rishon]