Shabes, and therefore it has not been established whether the documents are
based on children’s own handwritten essays or on their oral accounts, recorded
by their teacher.
Out of 34 accounts, at least 25 were written on the same day, that is
2 September 1941. Uniformly worded titles and subtitles of children’s statements
and the absence – with the exception of document 2 – of any annotations
on the margins of the texts suggest that the documents were based on
student essays, probably selected and, as indicated by their similar style, edited
by the teacher.²
The subject and plan behind all of the recorded documents clearly indicate
a questionnaire written or inspired by the Oyneg Shabes. Hersh Wasser’s
post-war note provides the following information:³ “Most likely written by children,
instructed by Genia Silkes.”⁴ There are many reasons to believe that she
was the “Headmistress”, the guardian of a group of older pupils, referenced in
many accounts by the children, who taught clandestine classes (see, for example,
Beniek Fryligsztejn’s questionnaire). Nevertheless, in her post-war memories,
mainly devoted to the kitchen-school at Nowolipki Street 68, Genia Silkes
does not mention the day-care.
2 For more on the analysis of these texts and their confrontation with the accounts by adults see J. Kowalska-Leder, Doświadczenie Zagłady z perspektywy dziecka w polskiej literaturze dokumentu osobistego (Wrocław 2009), pp. 37–62.
3 See description of this document; G. Silkes, Der Yiddisher Lerer [in:] Lerer-yizkor-bukh. Umgekumene lerer fun di tsisho-shuln in poyln, ed. Chaim Sh. Kazdan (New York 1954), pp. 559–66.
4 Genia Silkes (Sylkes) (1913 or 1914–1984), a graduate of the Stefan Batory University and the Jewish Teachers’ Seminary in Vilna (she studied there with Ringelblum’s sister, Giza); until the outbreak of the war, she worked in TSYSHO schools in Warsaw. In the ghetto, she worked in CENTOS, in the folk kitchen at Nowolipki Street 35 and in the Borochov School at Nowolipki Street 68. After escaping from the train headed for Treblinka, she hid in Warsaw outside the ghetto thanks to papers provided by Basia Temkin-Berman. In 1945–1949 Silkes worked in various agencies of CKŻP, including CŻKH, for which she collected accounts of children who survived; co-author of Instrukcja dla badania przeżyć dzieci żydowskich w okresie okupacji niemieckiej (Łódź 1945). From 1949 to 1958,
she worked as a teacher in France, later in New York for YIVO. For more information, see J. Schüller, “Genia Silkes – The Work of a Pedagogue at the Central Committee of Polish Jews and the Jewish Historical Institute in Post-War Poland,” KHŻ 2012, no. 2, pp. 381–90.
