Gutkowski once used the pseudonym A. Ben-Jakub, while Kalman Huberband
signed as K. H. Band.
Occasionally those who recorded testimonies (copyists) included on the
documents a few or more items of personal data about the author of the testimony.
The need to order the growing collection of archival materials and to
identify the authors and copyists forced the Oyneg Shabes team to introduce
a suitable system of identification to facilitate recognition of individual documents.
It seems that the work connected with the design and granting of
personal markings and codenames was mostly undertaken by Wasser during
the cataloguing of the Archive. It should be stressed that while making the
first lists in late 1941, Wasser added personal markings not only on the lists,
but also on the documents. But as soon as at the end of 1941 he gave up that
practice and began to reveal the personal data of the authors or copyists only
on the lists of archival materials instead of on both lists and files. A similar
rule was adhered to during the cataloguing in mid-1942. The fact that the
team was afraid to mark the documents with the mysterious codenames of
its co-workers suggests that the fear of exposure was great.³⁵
The personal identification on documents introduced by Oyneg Shabes
may be divided into several groups. Some documents were signed with full
surnames: Berliner, Błaszka, Frydrych, Goldfarb, Iliard, Lebensold, Lew,
Ostrowska, Pomeranc, Samson, Tykociński, Wajsberg, Wiernik, Wilner, or
Zimler. At times Wasser even added the first letter of the name of selected
people, for instance, M. Frenkiel (Frenkel), H. Lewkowicz, or M. Wasser.³⁶
More often the codenames contained only a fragment of the surname (Band =
Kalman Huberband, Ber = Borensztejn, Flig = Fligelman, Kampel = Kampelmacher,
Kon = Koninski, Shain = Shainkinder, etc.), words derived from surnames
(Fligar = Fligelman, Guter = Gutkowski, Kler = Winkler [?], Opoczner
= Opoczynski, Shainen [Shainer] = Shainkinder, Wilk = Wilczynski, etc.),
names (Cwi = Cwi Klejnman, Yitzhak = [?], Yekhiel = Gorny, Menakhem = Kon,
Mordecai = Schwartzbard, etc.), initials (An. = [?], Ch. = Chilinowicz, W. = Hersh
Wasser, etc.), nicknames (Doktor [Doctor], Kwiatek [Flower] = Ringelblum,
35 In ARG II 263/1 (Ring. II/233) Ringelblum often mentions the fear of exposure, which
Oyneg Shabes colleagues constantly felt during their work in the ghetto.
36 One should bear in mind that it remains unclear whether the surnames provided here
were real, as it is possible that some were only pseudonyms.
