Advanced Search

Learn About The Holocaust

Special Collections

My Saved Research

Login

Register

Help

Skip to main content

One of the three milk cans used by Warsaw ghetto historian Emanuel Ringelblum to store and preserve the secret "Oneg Shabbat" ghetto archives.

Photograph | Photograph Number: N00100
One of the three milk cans used by Warsaw ghetto historian Emanuel Ringelblum to store and preserve the secret "Oneg Shabbat" ghetto archives. This milk can, identified as no. 2, was unearthed at 58 Nowolipki Street in Warsaw on December 1, 1950.

One of the three milk cans used by Warsaw ghetto historian Emanuel Ringelblum to store and preserve the secret "Oneg Shabbat" ghetto archives.

This milk can, identified as no. 2, was unearthed at 58 Nowolipki Street in Warsaw on December 1, 1950.

Variant Locale
Warszawa
Varshava
Warschau
Photo Designation
ARTIFACTS -- Objects -- Milk Cans
Expand all

About This Photograph

Event History
The secret archives of the Warsaw ghetto, organized by the historian Emanuel Ringelblum, was known by its code name, Oneg Shabbat. The term, which refers to the traditional Sabbath gathering of members of the community, was applied to the archives because its organizers held their regular, clandestine meetings on the Sabbath. Begun as a chronicle by Ringelblum in October 1939, the archives was transformed into an organized underground operation with several dozen contributors after the sealing of the ghetto in November 1940. Financed by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC), its main objective was to document the events transpiring in the Warsaw ghetto and in occupied Poland in general by means of descriptive reports, summaries of oral testimony, minutes of meetings, diary entries, newspaper articles, and German proclamations. The holdings of the archives were buried in three parts. The first set of documents was placed in 10 tin boxes by the teacher Izrael Lichtensztajn and two of his former students, Dawid Graber and Nachum Grzywacz. On August 3, 1942, the boxes were buried in a bunker beneath the former public school building where Lichtensztajn had taught at 68 Nowolipki Street. In February 1943 Ringelblum and Lichtensztajn placed the second part of the archives in two large milk cans and buried them beneath the same building. On April 18, 1943, just one day before the start of the Warsaw ghetto uprising, the third and final part of the archives was placed in a cylindrical metal box and buried beneath a building located at 34 Swietojerska Street. After the war two of the three caches of documents were recovered. Two surviving members of the Oneg Shabbat staff, Rachela Auerbach and Hersz Wasser, led members of the Jewish Historical Commission of Poland to the first burial site. The 10 metal boxes were recovered on September 18, 1946. The second portion of the archives was uncovered on December 1, 1950. The final cache was never found.

[Source: Skibinska, Alina, "Information on discovery of the Ringelblum Archives part I & II." (13 May 2003).]
https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/warsaw.

Keywords and Subjects

Administrative History

Artifact Geography
Washington, DC United States
Artifact Photographer
Arnold Kramer

Rights and Restrictions

Photo Source
Zydowski Instytut Historyczny imienia Emanuela Ringelbluma
Copyright: Agency Agreement (Permission Required)
Source Record ID: Collections: IL91.002.001
Published Source
The World Must Know: The History of the Holocaust... - Berenbaum, Michael - Little, Brown and Company
Restriction
NOT FOR RELEASE without the permission of the Zydowski Instytut Historyczny imienia Emanuela Ringelbluma
 
Record last modified: 2005-11-15 00:00:00
This page: https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/pa1091138