EMANUEL RINGELBLUM (November 21, 1900-ca. March 15, 1944)
He was a
historian, born in Buczacz (Buchach), Galicia.
His original first name was Menakhem.
He received a traditional and a secular education. At the start of WWI, he fled with his family to Kolomaye and then on to Nowy Sącz. In 1919
he graduated from high school there and left for Warsaw. In 1927 he received his doctoral degree from
Warsaw University for a dissertation on the history of Jews in Warsaw in the
Middle Ages. He was very active in
cultural work of the left Labor Zionists.
After a year of teaching in Vilna’s Jewish middle school, he returned to
Warsaw and until 1938 worked there as a teacher in the Polish Jewish girls’
schools, Sachs and Yehudiya. From 1929
he took part in the work of the Joint Distribution Committee. He was active as well in YIVO, student
organizations, Tsisho (Central Jewish School Organization), and other Jewish cultural associations. When WWII broke out, he was at the Zionist
Congress in Zurich, and via a roundabout way returned to Warsaw, where he and a
few remaining leaders of the Joint took over the social work, helped institute
the self-help cooperative in the ghetto, and rapidly organized the collection
of testimonies and documents concerning Nazi atrocities under the secret name
“Oyneg Shabes” (enjoyment of the Sabbath).
Ringelblum attracted several dozen contributors and buried the
accumulated materials in milk cans, one portion of which were found in
September 1946, another portion in 1950, and a third part was not
recovered. As a member of the Jewish
National Committee, he was in the leadership of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising of
April 1943. After suppressing the
uprising, the Nazis forcibly transferred him to the Trawniki concentration camp
in the Lublin region. He was rescued
from there and brought to Warsaw, where he and his family were concealed in a
bunker beneath a garden. Due to a
denunciation, he, his family, and another thirty Jews were seized on March 6[1]
in their place of hiding, brought to Pawiak prison, and a few days later shot. Ringelblum had several opportunities to be
evacuated from Poland but refused them.
He began
his writing work as co-editor of the organs of the left Labor Zionists: Yugnt-fon (Youth banner), Der nayer dor (the new generation), and
later Fraye yugnt (Free youth) in
which he signed himself Munye Heler. He
published articles on economic, social, and cultural issues in: Literarishe bleter (Literary leaves), Kooperative bavegung (Cooperative
movement), Folkshilf (People’s help),
and Sotsyale meditzin (Social
medicine). He published scholarly
articles in: Yivo-bleter (Pages from
YIVO), Der yunger historiker (The
young historian), Fun noentn over
(From the recent past), Historishe
shriftn fun yivo (Historical writings from YIVO), and Ekonomishe shriftn fun yivo (Economic writings from YIVO). His first and most important work before WWII
was: Żydzi w Warszawie. Część
pierwsza: Od czasów najdawniejszych do ostatniego wygnania w r. 1527 (Jews
in Warsaw, part one: From the earliest times to the last exile in 1527)
(Warsaw, 1932), 151 pp. Several chapters
from this book were published in YIVO periodicals: Yunger historiker (1926), Filologishe
shriftn 1, and Ekonomishe shriftn
1. Inasmuch as the Warsaw’s province of
Mazovia was until 1527 an independent duchy, Ringelblum’s medieval history of
Jews in Warsaw was at the same time a reflection of the earlier unknown history
of Jewry over the entire territory.
Pursuant to his research into this history, Ringelblum (with Rifoel
Mahler) published in 1930 two works (one each in Polish and Yiddish): Geklibene mekoyrim tsu der geshikhte fun di yidn
in poyln un mizrekh-eyrope (Selected sources on the history of Jews in
Poland and Eastern Europe) (Warsaw: Kultur-lige); and Teksty źródłowe do nauki historji Żydow w Polsce i we wschodniej
Europie (Source texts for the study of Jewish history in Poland and Eastern
Europe) (Warsaw: Freid). Pieces of his
research on Jews throughout Poland are: Tsu
der geshikhte fun yidishn bukh un druk in poyln in der tsveyter helft fun 18tn
yorhundert (On the history of the Yiddish book and publishing in Poland in
the second half of the eighteenth century) (Vilna: YIVO, 1936), 64 pp.,
published previously in Yivo bleter
(1932-1934); “Żydzi
w świetle prasy
warszawkiej wieku” (Jews in the light of the Warsaw press of the century), Miesięcznik Żydowski (Jewish monthly) (1932); “Projekty i
prόby przewarstwowienia Żydόw w epoce stanisławowskiej” (Projects and attempts
to depict Jews in the [King] Stanisławów era), Sprawy Narodowościowe (Nationality affairs) 1 (1934); “Der
pinkes fun der protsker ‘khevre khayotim’” (Records of the Protsker “Association
of Tailors”), Ekonomishe shriftn (1932); Żydzi
polscy w insurekcji kościuszkowskiej 1794 r. (Polish
Jews in the Kosciuszko-insurrection of 1794) (Warsaw, 1937), 217 pp.; “Yohan
anton krieger, der nayhofer druker fun hebreyishe sforim” (Johann Anton
Krieger, the Neuhof [Novy-Dvor] printer of Hebrew texts), Yivo-bleter (1934); an essay on Jews in the Polish republic, in Żydzi w Polsce
Odrodzonej (Jews in the Restored Poland), vol. 1 (Warsaw, 1932);
and about thirty monographic pieces about Jewish communities in Poland in the
German-language Encyclopaedia Judaica.
Chapters of the second volume of his history of the Jews in Warsaw were
published in: Land-kentenish (Lay of the land) (1935-1937); Historishe
shriftn 2 (1937); Fun noentn over 4 (1937) and 5 (1938); and Tsien
(Zion) in Jerusalem (1938). Concerning
the era of the nineteenth century, he published some twenty-five articles in Sotsyale
meditsin (Social medicine) (1931-1938).
His
books (aside from those mentioned above) include: Notitsn fun varshever geto
(Notes from the Warsaw Ghetto) (Warsaw: Yidish bukh, 1952), 344 pp., English
translation by Jacob Sloan as Notes
from the Warsaw Ghetto: The Journal of Emmanuel Ringelblum (New York,
1968), 369 pp.; Kapitlen geshikhte fun
amolikn yidishn lebn in poyln (Chapters from the history of past Jewish
life in Poland) (Buenos Ayres: Tsentral-farband fun poylishe yidn in argentine,
1953), 589 pp.; Ksovin fun
geto (Writings from the ghetto) (Warsaw: Yidish bukh, 1961), 2 vols., new
expanded edition (Tel Aviv: Perets Publ., 1985), vol. 1: Togbukh (1939-1942) (Diary, 1939-1942), with prefaces by Joseph Kermish
and Arn Eisenbach (411 pp.); vol. 2: Notitsn
un ophandlungen, 1942-1943 (Notes and assessments, 1942-1943), with
appendices of Ringelblum’s unpublished and newly discovered notes (460 pp.). Thanks to Ringelblum’s research, we now know
more precisely and understand more fundamentally the historical development of
Polish Jewry from its earliest roots until later epochs.
In the
ghetto his general Jewish research was interrupted, and he turned his full
attention to taking notes—with a staff of collaborators—on every gruesome event
in the realm of hunger, torture, and violence.
He thought it necessary to take down even the smallest details that might
throw light on life in the ghetto. Had
Ringelblum left behind only his writings from the Warsaw Ghetto, that alone
would have assured him of an honored place [lit., an Eastern place, implying a
seat by the Eastern wall of a synagogue] in the history of the destruction of
European Jewry. Ringelblum’s diary of
the Warsaw Ghetto has no parallel in any memoir of that horrific era. He is depicted as one of the heroes in the
novels: John Hersey, The Wall (New
York, 1950); and Leon Uris, Mila 18
(New York, 1961).
Sources: Zalmen Reyzen, Leksikon, vol. 4; Meylekh Ravitsh, Mayn leksikon (My lexicon),
vol. 2 (Montreal, 1947); Yankev Kener, Kvershnit, 1897-1947, fragmentn
fun zikhroynes, epizodn, geshikhtlekhe momentn, gedenkverter vegn umgekumene
kdoyshim, martirer un kemfer (Cross-section, 1897-1947, fragments of
memoirs, episodes, historical moments, [and] words of remembrance for murdered
martyrs and fighters) (New York: Central Committee of the Left Labor Zionists,
1947), pp. 228-46; Bakh, in Bleter far
geshikhte (Warsaw) 1 (1948); Yankev Shatski bibliography, in Ringelblum, Kapitlen geshikhte fun amolikn yidishn lebn
in poyln (Chapters from the history of past Jewish life in Poland) (Buenos Ayres:
Tsentral-farband fun poylishe yidn in argentine, 1953); Nakhmen Blumental,
in Di goldene keyt (Tel Aviv) 15
(1953); Nosn Ek, in Di goldene keyt 24
(1956); Nakhmen Mayzil, Noente
un vayte (Near and far) (New York, 1957), pp. 323-51;
Yonas Turkov, in Tsukunft (New York)
10 (1961); Shloyme Bikl, Shrayber
fun mayn dor (Writers of my generation), vol. 2 (Tel Aviv, 1965), p. 214;
Rifoel Mahler, Historiker fun poylishe
yidn un fun zeyer umkum un gvure (Historian of Polish Jewry and of their mass
death and heroism) (Tel Aviv, 1967), pp. 374-301; Khayim Finkelshteyn, Vizye, vort un vor (Vision, word, and
reality) (Buenos Aires, 1967), pp. 286-95; Joseph Kermish, in Di goldene keyt 64 (1968); Y. Trunk, in Gilad (Tel Aviv) (1976), pp. 263-66.
Dr. Rifoel Mahler
[Additional information from: Berl Kagan, comp., Leksikon fun yidish-shraybers
(Biographical dictionary of Yiddish writers) (New York, 1986), col. 553.]
[1] Translator’s note. The YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in
Eastern Europe gives this date as March 7 (http://yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/Ringelblum_Emanuel).
(JAF)
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