Preface to the Eng lish Edition
The Emanuel Ringelblum Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw is proud to
present to the English speaking public the 6th volume of documents from
the Ringelblum Archive (The Underground Archive of the Warsaw Ghetto)
devoted to accounts and documents relating to the fate of the Jewish population
in the towns and cities of the General Government (GG).
The material is arranged in geographical order according to the German
occupation administrative division of Poland into four districts: Kraków,
Lublin, Radom, and Warsaw. The Galicia district was added into GG on
1st August 1941, but documents relating to that region are included in a separate
volume: Accounts from the Borderlands 1939-1941.
The Polish-language version, on which this edition is based, consists
of 38 volumes. The publishing process took 25 years, beginning in 1997, with
the final volume leaving the printing press in 2022.
The Ringelblum Archive contains testimonies and unique documents of
universal value. They are a first-hand account of the events of the moment
“zero”, recorded as they happened – or shortly after and cover the period of
1939-1943 during the Second World War. Information was transmitted by the
direct witnesses and victims themselves - and collected by Oyneg Shabes
group. Emanuel Ringelblum and his colleagues created a collection of unprecedented character, showing the magnitude of the suffering of the Jewish people at the hands of war criminals acting under the authority of the Nazi
German state. It shows psychological manipulation, involvement of bureaucracy,
military force and acts of “ordinary men” employed by the Third Reich
