Emanuel Ringelblum, Polish-Jewish historian, creator of the Underground Warsaw Ghetto Archive (1900 -- 1944) | Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust

Emanuel Ringelblum, Polish-Jewish historian, creator of the Underground Warsaw Ghetto Archive.

In 1927, he received a doctoral degree for his dissertation about the Jews in the midieval period in Poland. Dr. Ringelblum regarded the History of Jews in Poland as an integral part of Polish History.

In August 1939, he returned to Poland from Switzerland. In 1940, together with the family, he was secluded in the Warsaw Ghetto.

Emil Ringelblum became the head of the Jewish Social Selfhelp organizaiton (ZSS). This organization soon found itself in confrontation with the Juedenrat. The ZSS accuses the Juedenrat and the Ghetto Jewish police in corruption.

Since 1942, Emil Ringelblum became a member of the Antifascist block and the Jewish Fighting Organization (ZOB), the ghetto underground resistance.

Emil Ringelblum initiated the collection of the underground ghetto archive, formally named Oneg Shabath (The Joy of Shabath) on 22 July, 1940.

Collection of the material continue untill the liquidation of the Warsaw ghetto in May 1943. The Archive comprises the Chronicle of the Warsaw ghetto, the reports on the Jewish resistance and the documents with regard to the situation outside Warsaw.

On March 7, 1944, Emil Ringelblum with the wife and son were arrested in the hideout "Krysia." He and his family were killed in the Pawiak prison, propbably three days later after the arrest at the ruins of the Warsaw ghetto.