Oneg Szabat Archive is an enormous collection. Which aspects did you find the most important while creating this exhibition?
For us it was the most important to present the people who were creating the archive. For this reason the awareness of its entire picture as well as the knowledge who was responsible for its subsequent fragments is crucial. It of course includes many technical elements or official documents, which are not so impressive, but this collection has many memorable elements. From my own perspective, among the most moving materials there are Abraham Lewin’s journals, Abraham Krzepicki’s account from Treblinka or the first volume prepared by Ruta Sakowska and devoted to postcards sent to the ghetto – all of them had a huge influence on my imagination. But the records of war events forming the last part of the exhibition were the most important. They show the moment when the members of Oneg Szabat found out that the Germans had decided to kill the entire Jewish nation. At that moment the archivists started meticulously looking for the information on the situation in Warsaw as well as other cities of the General Government.
From our current perspective the work of the group managed by Emanuel Ringelblum is difficult to understand. The comprehension that the witnesses of the tragedy begin to document it in a systematic and scientific way. How to understand this testimony?
From my own perspective there are two dimensions which play here the crucial role. It is the recording of the accounts of people who, consciously or unconsciously, are heading towards the final moment – the moment of deportation. Their language, the way in which they perceive it, how they communicate it, how they observe the massacre which has become a fact, are for me very important. It is not the perspective of historians, but of the people who are closed in the deadly circle, who are left alone, usually deprived of any hope and who have to follow the unpredictable fate. The archivists were able to reach this basic language. It is included in particular in postcards, but also in journals or different types of accounts from the functioning of the Warsaw ghetto. The second important element lies in the fact that they were trying to refer to it with some cognitive control. They were writing the events down, preparing reports on the situation of people in labour camps, on the situation of refuges from different places. They aimed at creating some regularity in this madness, at building the objectivism – if we can call it in this way. These documents were to reflect – at least to some extent – the guarantee of objectivity and reliability.
INTERVIEW WITH PROf. Paweł ŚPIEWAK, the JHI Director