2. The Coming of the Ghetto

Available for over a year

The extraordinary Oyneg Shabes archive that secretly recorded daily Jewish existence in the Warsaw Ghetto – brought to life 80 years on from the Warsaw Ghetto uprising. Between 1940-43 a group of dedicated writers, led by historian Emanuel Ringeblum, clandestinely recorded daily life & death in the Warsaw Ghetto. The project became a race against time -history as survival. Anton Lesser narrates. Episode 2-The Coming of the Ghetto. With Elliot Levey as Emanuel Ringeblum. In the middle of Europe, in the middle of the 20th Century, a half million Jewish men, women & children were herded into a prison city within a city. How do you tell the world about your life and fate? Historian and activist Emanuel Ringelblum devised and directed a clandestine archive- codename Oyneg Shabes (Joy of the Sabbath) to chronicle every aspect of their existence. He recruited over 60 gatherers to write, collect & compile; diaries, essays, poems, photographs, statistical studies, art, ephemera -a historical treasure buried as the Ghetto was extinguished so that the world might read and understand. Listen to their stories Episode 2-The Coming of the Ghetto. In the first months of the German occupation the young social historian & aid worker Emanuel Ringeblum began to nightly compile notes on everything he saw & heard. The origins of Oyneg Shabes. Narration by Anton Lesser with Elliot Levey. Warsaw Streetscape Helen Beer and Mame Loshn/ Krystena Bell & Syrena Youth Theatre. Translation by Elinor Robinson. Historical adviser Samuel Kassow. Written & produced by Mark Burman. For more information on the Oyneg Shabes/Ringeblum archive go to the website of the Jewish Historical Institute https://cbj.jhi.pl/