As a historian, I am moved by the courage and foresight of Emanuel Ringelblum to preserve the history and personal stories of those Jews confined in the Warsaw Ghetto during the German occupation of Warsaw from 1940 – 1944. Ringelblum organized a group of associates who dramatically saved documents, letters, official German records, and other primary sources to make certain that the chronological story of the Warsaw Ghetto was not forgotten. Miraculously, these associates did not have contact with one another nor did they know who else Ringelblum had engaged with these preservation efforts. Metal boxes containing documents were buried layers into the earth only to be revealed after the conclusion of the German occupation of Warsaw. Housed in the Oyneg Shabbes Archive’s, these documents reveal the horror, terror, and desperation of those Jews trapped in the ghetto. In reading a variety of letters and documents, I was struck by the personal diary of Abraham Lewin. Lewin, a devoted teacher, wrote extensively about the first German liquidation of the Warsaw Ghetto. Lewin focused on his wife Luba’s deportation to Treblinka. Lewin wrote specifically that “Today is the twenty-sixth day of the “action,” which continues. Its terror and furious bestiality are without precedent in the history of mankind.
They are not even matched by the legend of the Pharaoh and his order that every newborn should be drowned in the river. People returning from the Umschlagplatz have said that the women rounded up in the shops yesterday were set free in exchange for sacrificing their children. […] The G[ermans’] thirst for Jewish blood in insatiable. Their blood lust is unbridled. Future generations will not believe.”
I am particularly struck by the final sentence of future generations not believing that these events actually happened, thus the importance of the preservation of these sources. I am also moved as well that Lewin’s wife was deported to Treblinka.
Walking on the ground at Treblinka I was profoundly moved by the peace and serenity of the place knowing the death and destruction that occurred within that forest. As the breeze ruffled and swayed the branches of the trees, I could only imagine the wails of sorrow of those victims who arrived upon the rail platform. As I write I wonder about those actions of German agents of death who sought to cover their tracks knowing how morally wrong their actions were and how they worked so precisely to deceive those victims who arrived that there might still be an ounce of hope in survival. Deeply touched by the commemoration to those who perished by our CWB group, I am grateful for the opportunity to learn, feel, and grow from the experience as a scholar, but more significantly, as a human being.