. It is all full of statistical data – how many people were working in the sheds, how many were each day deported from Warsaw. They wanted it all to be treated seriously. But this is only one of the dimensions of their work.
Some very moving and piercing courage can be seen here. These are not a few randomly collected documents. This is an impressive systematic work done.
While thinking about the activity of Oneg Szabat it is necessary to remember that the group remained active for only 26 months. For some people it was even shorter, as some members died after a few months. We see that the authors were aware of the fact that this was a unique situation in the history of Jews and that it had to be recorded. We also see that they understood the importance of memory – they accepted that the nation might perish, but the memory should remain. It is extremely important, as we sometimes tend to banally repeat the saying that history is written by the winners. They did not want it to happen. The history was to be recorded by those sentenced to death.
Here we can see their stubbornness, courage and determination, the feeling that the existence of durable memory depends to some extent on them. They knew that what they buried in August 1942 and then in February 1943 these were precious items. They were aware of it.
The confrontation with this preciosity, with the milk can in which part of the archive was hidden, constitutes one of the most moving moments of the exhibition. The other consists in standing face to face with written testaments of Oneg Szabat founders. This message is very important and I suppose that these words constituted for you additional responsibility.
The text included in these testaments which is the most shocking for me – though it is difficult to say what does not shock there – these are the words of the 19 years old boy who notes that they are already taking the people from the neighbouring street, that everything is unexpected, that he and his friends performed an enormous task and his request: remember, I’m Nachum Grzywacz. This request constitutes what remains – the archive preserved not only the tragedy of this death, but also names and surnames. Very specific people perished with very specific biographies – for the authors of the archives it constituted a must to show it.
The exhibition has already been inaugurated. In the nearest future, what will constitute crucial elements in the context of making the Ringelblum archive available to the public?
We are soon going to finish the publishing of the archive. There are a few more volumes. The translation of its entire content into English will also be crucial – it is a real way to make it publicly available, through posting it on the Internet. We will for sure be organizing workshops and lessons about this archive with people representing different environments. In Poland the archive is not really well known – it is not popular in the rest of the world either. The importance of the archive is not as appreciated as it should be. Maybe we will also be able to show a similar exhibition all over the world. First in Toronto. I hope that showing this work to the public will matter.
Rozmawiał Paweł Sawicki
Prof. Paweł Śpiewak during the opening. Photo: JHI