The everyday — meals, errands, conversations, arguments, illnesses, chores — is often what history forgets first. It is the realm of the seemingly insignificant. But for the Oyneg Shabes, the everyday was a deliberate site of resistance because it was precisely this ordinary fabric of life that the Nazis set out to make impossible, to destroy and to erase from the record. To document the everyday in the Warsaw Ghetto was to make a radical claim: that Jewish life was still life — not a problem, not a statistic, not a prelude to death. Modern totalitarianism works not only by killing the body, but by rendering invisible the person who lived within it. The Nazis sought to strip Jews of names, language, space, meaning. What they offered in its place were numbers, bureaucratic labels, and the myth of the "nameless mass." The most powerful weapon Oyneg Shabes wielded against this dehumanization was not armed resistance, which its members, too, partook in — but description. What the Ghetto inhabitants thought of a new play. The activities of schoolchildren. The patents of its members. The candies sold on street corners.
These were not digressions from “serious” testimony, or any less worthy of attention. On the contrary, they declared: we are not reducible. We are not disappearing silently.
These were not digressions from “serious” testimony, or any less worthy of attention. On the contrary, they declared: we are not reducible. We are not disappearing silently.
To resist destruction by capturing the everyday is to challenge the very terms by which power makes people disappear. The Nazis sought not only to eliminate the Jewish people, but to deny them the right to have lived in the first place. That is: to erase evidence that their lives had ever contained dignity, detail, complexity, contradiction.
The Oyneg Shabes fought that erasure by preserving the everyday. And in doing so, they preserved not only memory but agency — not only that Jews died, but how they lived.
For today’s reader, the temptation is to seek the extraordinary — the big revelation, the poetic phrase, the shocking statistic. But to honor this material is to understand that the everyday is extraordinary. That these fragments are not incidental — they are residues of the human.
A candy wrapper
A food ration card
Invitation to “A Great Children’s Presentation” on the occasion of “Holiday of the Child —5.05.1942,” in the “Femina” hall
What happens when we treat the “ordinary” not as a background, but as a form of knowledge?
The Oyneg Shabes archive includes reports on the psychological toll of hunger, the logistics of smuggling, the internal economies of barter and theft. These are documents of infrastructure — of how people endured structurally. But just as often, the texts turn to questions of care: the behavior of mothers, the state of religious observance, the role of art, the routines of children. In these accounts, the “everyday” becomes a measure of what it took to remain human.
The scholar Michael Rothberg has argued for a “multidirectional memory,” one that does not separate suffering from the daily conditions in which it is experienced. The Oyneg Shabes was already doing this decades before the theory emerged. It understood that atrocity is not only a historical event but a slow, daily degradation — and that resistance, likewise, is not only a heroic gesture but a set of repeated, intimate acts.
The Oyneg Shabes archive includes reports on the psychological toll of hunger, the logistics of smuggling, the internal economies of barter and theft. These are documents of infrastructure — of how people endured structurally. But just as often, the texts turn to questions of care: the behavior of mothers, the state of religious observance, the role of art, the routines of children. In these accounts, the “everyday” becomes a measure of what it took to remain human.
The scholar Michael Rothberg has argued for a “multidirectional memory,” one that does not separate suffering from the daily conditions in which it is experienced. The Oyneg Shabes was already doing this decades before the theory emerged. It understood that atrocity is not only a historical event but a slow, daily degradation — and that resistance, likewise, is not only a heroic gesture but a set of repeated, intimate acts.
Ringelblum envisioned “armies of zamlers” preserving the collective memory of the Jewish people. This philosophy guided the Oyneg Shabes: it was a collective project of dozens of individuals, each writing their piece of history. In practice, Ringelblum was the chief editor and motivator, but he empowered others — from rabbis to teenage girls — to contribute in their own voice.
Emanuel Ringelblum designed the breadth of the Archive to be as wide as possible, from ephemera to official documentation to photographs and artwork, a deliberate decision. Ringelblum wanted future generations to see beyond statistics that would read as Nazi achievements — instead to see the faces, voices, and daily routines of an exterminated community.
Emanuel Ringelblum designed the breadth of the Archive to be as wide as possible, from ephemera to official documentation to photographs and artwork, a deliberate decision. Ringelblum wanted future generations to see beyond statistics that would read as Nazi achievements — instead to see the faces, voices, and daily routines of an exterminated community.
For today’s reader, the temptation is to seek the extraordinary — the big revelation, the poetic phrase, the shocking statistic. But to honor this material is to understand that the everyday is extraordinary. That these fragments are not incidental — they are residues of the human.
Address list of 37 individuals — workers of the Oyneg Shabes
Underground monthly of the Ha-Shomer Ha-Tsair (Against the Current) organization, issue 2(13), 02/03.1941
Postcard with information about mass executions (inter alia 18.04.1942) in Międzyrzec Podlaski, Poland. Lists addressee as J. Perkal, Warsaw ul. Twarda 30, Apt. 10.
Menachem Mendel Kohn’s ID card
A candy wrapper
A patent of Henryk Piórnik and Wacław Kączkowski issued by the Patent Office of the Republic of Poland
Invitation and ticket to a cultural performance organized in the Warsaw Ghetto
Materials from the Archive
Newsletter of children of the boarding school at ul. Gęsia 6/8. Authors of texts: M. Lipman, S. Hajtler, J. Denda, Sz. Gogol, Josef Fibich (age 10), Jankiel Hanower (age 11), Jakub Lerych (age 12), I. Rutowicz, M. Bafilis, J. Cwikiel.
Fig. 1 Beniamin Zabłudowski — died 3 January 1942, member of the Jewish Council
Fig. 2 Hilary Fogel — died 1 October 1941, age 40, “delegate of the Łódz hometown association”
Fig. 3 Roza Symchowicz — died before 2 December 1941, educator and meritorious cultural activist
Fig. 4 Liza Nachtensztejn — died before 10.12.1941, veteran teacher
Fig. 5 Dr. Szymon Tenenbaum — died 28 November 1941), age 49, naturalist, member of the Warsaw Scientific Association [Towarzywstwa Naukowego Warszawskiego] and the Academy of Sciences in Kraków [Polska Akademia Umiejętności], former director of the Laor secondary school.
100 grams
Provisioning Unit of the Jewish District [at the Jewish Council] in Warsaw
Signature of school director B. [Bluma] Wasser, wife of Hersz Wasser.
Original, handwritten manuscript, pencil, Hebrew, Yiddish, 353×218 mm, serious damage and losses of text
Original, hectographed typescript, Yiddish, 210×290 mm, minor damage and losses of text
Original (2 copies), Printed Polish, 137×75 mm
Fig. 1 Staging Point
Fig. 2 Hospital on ‘the Other Side’
Fig. 3 A Carter’s Funeral (?)
Fig. 4 Funeral for the Hawker’s Wife
Fig. 5 Chaimek Sztarkman [died 16.12.1941]
Fig. 6 Burial Fund.
Fig. 1 Concert of oratorio music at the Great Synagogue on ul. Tłomackie on 19 October 1941 organized by “Centos” on the occasion of Children’s Month (09–10.1941). Performers: Choir of the Great Synagogue—Dir. Dawid Ajzensztadt, the Jewish Symphonic Orchestra—Dir. Marian Neuteich, soloists: Marysia Ajzensztadtówna (singing), Henryk Reinberg (violin), Izrael Fajwiszys (organ)
Fig. 2 Sponsors’ Committee and Ladies’ Kitchen and Hearth Circle of “point” no. 118 of the “Centos” Society, Invitation to 2 vocal-musical teas in the garden of the “point” at ul. Nowolipki 35, no date;
Fig. 3 Stamp: “Sponsors’ Committee of the Communal Kitchen for Children no. 118,” ul. Nowolipki 35, 144×102 mm
Chorus under Dir. Goldberg, Blitówna at the grand piano, Tran-Herclichówna leads dance.
Original, hectographed typescript, Polish, Yiddish, 165×228 mm
On the program: Izrael Lichtensztajn, Mina Abelman, Sz. Zagan, Menachem Linder, Diana Blumenfeld, Ajzyk Samberg, Dawid Szerman as well as a Yiddish children’s chorus, dance.
Physical Description: Original, hectographed typescript, Yiddish, 182×258 mm.
On the reverse side, a stamp that reads: “Supplemental feeding kitchen for children no. 143 at ul. Krochmalna 36.”
Original, printed matter, handwritten manuscript, ink, 120×85 mm
Dance under the direction of N. Tran-Herclich, singing, appearance of Adam Herszkowicz, orchestra under the direction of Bobby Fiedler.
Printed (2 copies), Polish, Yiddish, 80x92mm
Dance under the direction of N. Tran-Herclich, singing, appearance of Adam Herszkowicz, orchestra under the direction of Bobby Fiedler.
Printed, handwritten manuscript, ink, minor damage and losses of text, 98×110 mm