Vom Ringelblum-Archiv und dem Jüdischen Historischen Institut

On 1 December 1950, the second part of the so-called Ringelblum Archive was discovered in the ruins of Warsaw. The unique materials were put together by a clandestine group of activists in the Warsaw Ghetto, calling themselves Oyneg Shabbes and headed by the historian Emanuel Ringelblum. In awareness of the unprecedented nature of the atrocities unfolding around them, they strove to preserve documentation and proof for posterity. Gathering first-person accounts, statistical and organizational data, as well as official German documents and other materials, the archive they buried in 1942 and 1943 is one the most important collections documenting the Jewish fate during the Holocaust. The first part of the archive was found in September 1946. 

To mark the 75th anniversary of the discovery of the second part of the archive, we are offering a special guided tour of the exhibition »The Determining Gaze. Images of Jewish Life in Postwar Poland« on Thesday, 2 December 2025, at 1 p.m. It emerged in cooperation with the Emanuel Ringelblum Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw, which holds one of the most important collections on Polish Jewish history. A unique photographic collection consisting especially of photo albums offers insights into the ambivalence of the first postwar years.