and cataloguing: for instance, Hersh Wasser, Eliyahu Gutkowski, Bluma
Wasser, and Yekhiel Gorny. Others, for instance Daniel Fligelman and
Shmuel Shainkinder, concentrated on collecting and editing testimonies,
while Emanuel Ringelblum prepared, among others, outlines of future studies.
Furthermore, Nehemia Tytelman collected documentation regarding the
ghetto’s street folklore, while Stanisław Różycki observed the everyday life
of inhabitants of the “closed district”. The most conscientious copyists were
Mordecai Schwartzbard, Abraham Lewin, and Natan Koninski, along with
a group of anonymous copyists whose surnames remain unknown. Other
authors’ participation in the team’s work consisted of submission of their
own scientific texts, testimonies, or literary works (for instance, Bernard
Kampelmacher and Peretz Opoczynski). Hersh Wasser is also to be found
among those who conducted interviews and edited the texts, while Bluma
Wasser and Yekhiel Gorny dealt with cataloguing and copying the documents.
Gustawa Jarecka was both a copyist and the author of the testimony
“Ostatnim etapem przesiedlenia jest śmierć” [The Last Stage of the
Resettlement Is Death].¹⁴ Rabbi Shimon Huberband edited his own texts and
wrote down other people’s testimonies, while Menakhem Mendel Kon was
the bookkeeper and author of texts for the ARG.
Even though among the closest collaborators of the Archive there were
people ideologically and socially close to Ringelblum, they did not make up
the entire personnel, as team members were selected using much wider and
diverse criteria. Political and social differences diminished as a result of the
dangers and tasks that Oyneg Shabes faced. Activists of radically leftist parties
were joined by representatives of totally different political and social
trends. “For many months the pious rabbi Huberband sat at a table next to the
Left Poalei Tsiyon member Hersh Wasser and the General Zionist Abraham
Lewin.”¹⁵ That one group included Yiddish enthusiasts, fierce promoters of
Hebrew, and individuals who used Polish, exclusively or usually (for instance,
Daniel Fligelman, Gustawa Jarecka, Bernard Kampelmacher, Natan Koninski,
Salomea Ostrowska, Stanisław Różycki). Even though Ringelblum was not
fond of assimilators, not all his texts for the ARG are in Yiddish, as he sometimes
chose Polish writings. Even though his closest helper, Hersh Wasser,
14 ARG II 272 (Ring. II/197).
15 ARG II 263/1 (Ring. II/ 233), p. 27.
