Hidden Archives – Public Struggles

Events Commemorating the 75th Anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising

In spring of 1943, as World War II raged on the European continent, and as the Nazis intensified their efforts to deport Jews to extermination centers, a group of Polish Jews in occupied Warsaw led an armed uprising. Over the ensuing twenty-eight days that the battle lasted, the Warsaw ghetto was razed, leaving thousands dead and heaps of rubble. However, shortly before the destruction, a clandestine scholarly organization operating for the previous three years under the code name Oyneg Shabes (Joy of the Sabbath) buried milk cans and tin boxes containing thousands of items that documented the lives and experiences of the ghetto’s inhabitants. The efforts of the Oyneg Shabes, led by the Polish-Jewish historian Emanuel Ringelblum, ensured that the voices of the doomed Jewish inhabitants would outlast Nazi efforts to silence them. While much of the cache was discovered in the aftermath of the war, it remained relatively little known and largely untranslated until the end of the twentieth century.

Tuesday, February 20, 2018
5:00 p.m.
Doheny Memorial Library
Friends Lecture Hall (room 240)
“What Was Unique about the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising,” a talk by SAMUEL KASSOW, professor of history at Trinity College (Hartford) and author of Who Will Write Our History? Emanuel Ringelblum, the Warsaw Ghetto, and the Oyneg Shabes Archive

Monday, April 2, 2018
5:00 p.m.
Doheny Memorial Library
Friends Lecture Hall (room 240)
Filmmaker ROBERTA GROSSMAN previews her forthcoming documentary about the Oyneg Shabes archive, narrated by Academy Award-winner Adrian Brody.

For questions and to RSVP for free parking, email Sofia Lesinska at lesinska@usc.edu.