Research Programme – Surveys and Outlines
A careful reader of Oyneg Shabes’s cashbook will notice several entries regarding
amounts due and payments for “2½ years”. The codename “Dwa i pół roku”
[Two and a half years] was given to the Ghetto Archive’s research project to
undertake an extensive study on the fate of the Jewish population during the
occupation (1939–1942). The idea was conceived in early 1942 and a decision was
made to prepare for printing a work, which would consist of more than one
hundred sheets and four parts: the first general, the second pertaining to economic
issues, the third on culture, art and science, and the fourth regarding
social welfare. The works were directed by a three-person board consisting of
Ringelblum, Linder, and Bloch. Ringelblum was supposed to prepare the first
and the third parts, Linder the second, and Bloch the fourth. Members of the
editorial board were to collect materials and be responsible for the final shape
of the work, while various authors were commissioned to write the individual
parts. A series of outlines (theses) were prepared for the individual parts of the
work, to ensure a uniform character of the study. It seems that a substantial
percentage of the outlines have fortuitously survived. The work on them went
on for a few months, uninterrupted by the deportations in the summer of 1942.
The levels of completion and details of individual theses vary, but on
the whole they concern a very wide range of issues within the framework of
the individual research topics. They also maintain a proper distance towards
their subject matter. The outlines were prepared for the purpose of writing
fully objective studies, sometimes presenting entirely contradictory phenomena
and ideas. It should be stressed that even in such extreme working
conditions the team still endeavoured to maintain professionalism. The creators
of the programme wanted the future monograph to reflect reality, including
all elements that the co-workers managed to describe. The authors were
required to present various attitudes, even in the case of issues as difficult
as the relations with Germans or Poles. If one analyses the documents produced
on the basis of the outlines prepared by Oyneg Shabes writers, one sees
that those theoretical principles were adhered to in practice, for the authors
of the testimonies and studies were required to provide a broad background of
the described events, present the varied behaviour of the occupier, and paint
a full picture of the Polish and Jewish populations. To a modern-day reader the
objectivity of many testimonies can sometimes be surprising as they contain
