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Within a
few months of the beginning of the war, Dr. Emanuel Ringelblum and a
group of friends began to gather testimonies and descriptions of
events of Jews who had come to the capital from peripheral towns.
When the Jews were interned in the Warsaw Ghetto, a new phase in the
work of the archives began. Ringelblum, aware that the events
befalling the Jews under the occupation regime were unprecedented,
believed it essential to enable future historians to obtain
painstakingly recorded material. The team did not settle for
gathering material and taking notes on events; it also encouraged
writers and laypersons to write about, and analyze, the ghetto
realities. Among the small circle of friends who established and
managed the collection known as the “Oneg Shabbat” archives,
only one member survived.
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