Warsaw Ghetto and Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, 1939-1978
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Brief Description:

This record group is comprised of photographs, narratives, postwar correspondence, officially-issued documentation, and links to U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum documentaries. Represented in the photographs are street scenes, Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, forced stripping and life in the Warsaw Ghetto, while other materials contain documents issued by German authorities and the Jewish ghetto administration. A significant collection includes documents from Władysław Wójcik, a Polish construction technician, who, while working on the site of the former Warsaw ghetto in 1950, discovered the second part of the Ringelblum Archive. The Władysław Wójcik collection contains postwar correspondence between Mr. Wójcik and various Jewish organizations, including the Israeli Consulate General, Yad Vashem, and the Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw, as well as medical doctors whose care he sought out.

The linked documentaries, within this record group, are streamed from the Film and Video Archive of the USHMM. These documentaries are Destruction of Warsaw, Poland; Claude Lanzmann Shoah Collection, Interview with Jan Karski; and Propaganda filming of the Warsaw Ghetto: prison; street; corpses; burial.

This record group contain both original materials, as well as secondary documents and photographs. The materials in this record group have been partially digitized.

Held at:
Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust
100 S. The Grove Drive
Los Angeles, CA 90036
Phone: 323-651-3704
Fax: 323-843-9518
Email: archive [at] lamoth.org
Record Series Number: RG-25/RG-25
Created by: Czerniaków, Adam (1880-1942), Wójcik, Władysław
Volume: 0.0
Arrangement:

The arrangement scheme for the record group was imposed during processing in the absence of an original order. Materials are arranged by subject, then by identifier, as assigned by the processor.

Record group is comprised of seven collections and three items, the collections of which are: 1. Collection of Warsaw ghetto street scene photographs; 2. Collection on Warsaw Ghetto Uprising; 3. Collection of exhibit-building photographs; 4. Collection of Warsaw ghetto documents issued by the German authorities and Jewish ghetto administration; 5. Władysław Wójcik collection; 6.Collection of photographs on forced stripping in the Warsaw ghetto; 7. Collection on Adam Czerniakow.

Biographical Note for Czerniaków, Adam (1880-1942) :

Adam Czerniaków, Chairman of the Warsaw Jewish Council from September 1939 to 23 July 1942, was often known for what he was not. He was not a religious Orthodox, not a Bundist (Jewish social-democrat), not an ardent Zionist. Yet he was a man with qualities: an honest, reliable, responsible, carrying, and compassionate person. Reflections on what he was not would only confirm his adequacy to the period of extreme challenges, in which he lived. He did not flee Warsaw in the wake of German occupation, like former chairman, Maurycyj Mayzel; he did not misinform the German authorities on the gruesome situation in the ghetto, like the chairman of the Łódź ghetto, Mordechai Chaim Rumkowski, did. Adam Czerniaków being a captain of a sinking ship still believed in a positive outcome.

When it became obvious that the Germans commenced mass deportations from the ghetto in the end of July 1942, with expectations of compliance with deportation quotas, Adam Czerniaków committed suicide on 23 July 1942. In his final passage of his Diary on Tishe B’Av, July 23, 1942, he wrote “It is 3 o’clock. So far there are 4000 ready to go. According to orders there have to be four thousand [more] by 4 o’clock.”[1]

Czerniaków kept his diary from the beginning of the German occupation of Warsaw (October 1939) to the orders of mass deportation from the Warsaw ghetto (July 1942). The entries were concise, well to the point, but not without passion. His records comprise a truthful narrative, startling and stunning in its exactness and historicism. In the post-Holocaust world, Czerniaków’s diaries have become a credible standard allowing us to test the reliability of other relevant sources.

<br clear="all" /> <hr align="left" size="1" width="33%" /> [1] Raul Hilberg, Stanisław Staron, and Josef Kermisz, eds. The Warsaw Diary of Adam Czerniaków: Prelude to Doom (New York: Stein and Day, 1979), 23.

Subject Index
Adam Czerniakow, Chairman of the Jewish Council of Warsaw, 1939-1942
Aftermath of Warsaw ghetto uprising
Black Market in the Warsaw Ghetto, 1940 --1943
Books in the Warsaw ghetto, 1940 --1943
Business in the Warsaw ghetto
Children in the Warsaw Ghetto
Collaboration between the members of Jewish councils and German administration
Collaboration in ghettos
collaboration in the Holocaust
Collaboration in the Warsaw Ghetto, 1940 --1943
Commemoration of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising
Connections between the Jewish Combat Organization and Polish Governmetn in Exile, 1942 -- 1945
Correspondence between Wladyslaw Wojcik and Jewish Organizations in the United States and Israel
Corruption in the Warsaw ghetto, 1939 -- 1943
day-to-day life in the Warsaw ghetto
Demolition of the Warsaw Ghetto, May 1943
Deportation from Warsaw Ghetto to Treblinka death camp, July 1942
Deportations from the Warsaw Ghetto, 1942 -- 1943
Destruction of the Warsaw ghetto, post-uprising
Diary of Adam Czerniakow, the chairman of the Jewish Council of Warsaw
Education in the Warsaw ghetto
Emanuel Ringelblum
Emanuel Ringelblum Archive, Warsaw Ghetto
Entertainment in the Warsaw ghetto
Female nudity, Warsaw Ghetto
Final Aktion (action) in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, 16 May 1943
Food distribution in the Warsaw ghetto, 1940 --1943
Food rations in the Warsaw Ghetto
German military operation against Warsaw Ghetto Uprising
German rules and orders regarding the Warsaw Ghetto
Hunger in the Warsaw Ghetto
intellectual life in the Warsaw ghetto, 1940 --1943
Jewish Combat Organization (Zydowska Organizacja Bojowa)
Jewish Combat Organziation (ZOB), members
Jewish Order Police in the Warsaw ghetto, 1940 --1943
Jewish prisoners of Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, 1943
Jurgen (Juergen) Stroop, General of Combat SS and Police
Jurgen (Juergen) Stroop, report of the last day of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, 16 May 1943
Life conditions in the Warsaw Ghetto
Liquidation of Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, May 1943
means of survival in the Warsaw ghetto, 1940 --1943
Medical care in Warsaw Ghetto
Mordechaj Anielewicz, commander of the Jewish Combat Organization and the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising
Orders issued by the German administration during the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, 1943
Pedestrian bridges in the Warsaw ghetto
Poland (1939--1945)
Polish Home Army (Armija Krajowa)
Poverty and Desperation in the Warsaw ghetto
Relations between Jewish and Polish Resistance in Warsaw, 1939 -- 1945
Sarenka Rachel Zylberberg, organizer of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising
Selection for resettlement (deportation) from Warsaw ghetto
Smuggling in the Warsaw Ghetto, 1940 --1943
The Holocaust in Poland
The last day of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, 16 May 1943
The role of the Warsaw sewers in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising
Warsaw (Poland)
Warsaw (Poland: ghetto)
Warsaw ghetto, post-uprising and liquidation
Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, combat tactics
Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, defense bunkers
Zydowski Zwiazek Wojskowy (Jewish Military Union), Warsaw
Genres/Forms of Material
Molotov Cocktails, a liquid explosive used by the Jewish resistance in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising
Languages of Materials
German [ger]
English [eng]
French [fre]
Polish [pol]
Physical Access Notes: The photographs received from the Bundesarchiv, which have been rarely used in publications, are currently displayed in the museum exhibits.
Other Formats: Some of the secondary photographs have been received from the Bundesarchiv, and the documentaries are linked from the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. Destruction of Warsaw, Poland can be found at http://resources.ushmm.org/film/display/detail.php?file_num=0312; Claude Lanzmann Shoah Collection, Interview with Jan Karski can be found at http://resources.ushmm.org/film/display/detail.php?file_num=4739; and Propaganda filming of the Warsaw Ghetto: prison; street; corpses; burial can be found at http://resources.ushmm.org/film/display/detail.php?file_num=1646.
PreferredCitation: RG-25, Warsaw Ghetto. Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust Archive.