Emmanuel Ringelblum, historian

A historian well known for his work on the Warsaw Jews, Emmanuel Ringelblum was involved very early on with the activities of the Jewish Research Institute (YIVO), founded in 1925 in Vilna (then in Poland and now in Lithuania). In 1930, he became friends with Itzhak Giterman who was in charge of the Polish section of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (Joint), where he participated in efforts to help Jews expelled from Germany in 1938. At the time of the German invasion in September 1939, he joined in the civil defense of Warsaw as secretary of the Jewish Social Services Coordination Committee which later gave rise to the Jewish Mutual Aid (ZSS) which played an essential role for survival within the Warsaw Ghetto.

From the very first weeks of occupation, faithful to his task as a historian, Emmanuel Ringelblum set out to collect documents relating to the Jewish community. On November 22, 1940, one week after the Ghetto was closed off, he invited a dozen people to his home to join in the self-appointed task of elaborating a history of Polish Jews during the war.

The group adopted the Yiddish name of Oyneg Shabbes (joy of the Sabbath), since generally they met on Saturdays.