{"id":254,"date":"2024-02-12T08:27:35","date_gmt":"2024-02-12T13:27:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/emmanuelringelblumresearchcenter.org\/?page_id=254"},"modified":"2024-02-12T08:27:37","modified_gmt":"2024-02-12T13:27:37","slug":"letter-1-25-xi-1943","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/emmanuelringelblumresearchcenter.org\/?page_id=254","title":{"rendered":"Letter [1] 25\/XI 1943"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
Original<\/th>Transcription<\/th><\/tr><\/thead>
Letter [1]<\/a><\/td><\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Emmanuel Ringelblum to Adolf Berman, 25 November 1943<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My dears!  We Thank you cordially for sending us 10.1<\/a><\/sup>[i]<\/sup><\/a>  We\u2019ll find it very useful in connection with a series of expenses that we have at the moment (a jacket or coat for Jurek[ii]<\/sup><\/a>2<\/a><\/sup> \u2014 the old one was lost on the way from Mrs T.\u2019s[iii]<\/a>)3<\/a><\/sup>.  The news in your letter interested us greatly, especially about our friends.  <\/mark>I know Mr. Jeleniog. from CKU very well.<\/a> He comes from W\u0142oc\u0142awek, very wealthy.  He ran a co-operative on Leszno. <\/strong> He was very active socially.<\/strong> 4<\/a><\/sup> Warm could do with a pill from the Blei company.[v]<\/sup><\/a>  A scoundrel and a bribe-taker.  He should be treated like a leper.  Marek[vi]<\/sup><\/a> knows nothing about the others.  They have to be checked very carefully before they are admitted to the partnership.[vii]<\/a>  With black sheep you need to behave like E.R. in the firm Trawnicki & Co.[viii]<\/sup><\/a>  Isn\u2019t Gwiazda one of Jele\u0144\u2019s partners \u2014 a very decent man?[ix]<\/sup><\/a>  As to Mr Horm, he isn\u2019t the same person as Gawe\u0142.  Dolek saw Mr Gawe\u0142 at Bronis\u0142aw\u2019s.[x]<\/sup><\/a>  Mr Horm from the Budzy\u0144ski company is the brother-in-law of Edzio\u2019s[xi]<\/a> friends and co-operates with the writer J.L. Per., is very active in District I and in the \u201cChildrens\u2019 Street\u201d boarding school for girls, etc.[xii]<\/sup><\/a>  In a word, a very devoted worker.   I commend him most warmly to the care of our friends.  Please pass cordial greetings to him from me, J\u00f3zia[xiii]<\/sup><\/a> and Jurek.  He\u2019s R\u00f3\u017cycki\u2019s brother-in-law, a very devoted man.[xiv]<\/a>  You\u2019ve no idea how we\u2019re cheered up by the news that hope is dawning as to Mr Lipowski and friends:[xv]<\/a> Wilczy\u0144ski, Zelmanowski and Kaczka are very valuable people.  I\u2019m afraid it\u2019s all too late, that the most worthwhile people have left the partnership and that only third- and fourth-rate people remain.[xvi]<\/a> It would already be appropriate at this point to change more than one chapter about p.j.r.,[xvii]<\/sup><\/a> so much has everything changed radically, and to think that none of the Lubelskis wanted to take anyone into the partnership, while after all even in the days of E.R. they were turned to for help with organizing a new partnership and nothing ….[xviii]<\/sup><\/a>  I\u2019m glad that we agree about Dr V and the others.[xix]<\/a>  The matter of contact with Mr W\u0119g. interests us especially.[xx]<\/sup><\/a>  Dan.[xxi]<\/sup><\/a> promised to give us details.  But maybe you know them?  I can see that you are treating the matter very seriously.  I have the impression that in our firm\u2019s position the concept of duty no longer means what it used to.[xxii]<\/sup><\/a>  And won\u2019t it be jumping from the frying pan into the fire?[xxiii]<\/a>  How does this matter look?  Thank you very much for promising to send the business documents, I need them very much.  I am treating the work about p.j.r. only as a sketch which will be subject to change in more than one respect.  As to Mr Mich., I will gladly take into account the things that have been left out.[xxiv]<\/sup><\/a>  I am interested mostly in wartime phenomena.  I have the impression that Miss Irena didn\u2019t come out too badly.[xxv]<\/a>  I wrote what I knew about her.  Do you have details about Mr Berge\u0144ski\u2019s inappropriate behaviour?[xxvi]<\/a>  I have the impression that the writer Perelski is living with him.[xxvii]<\/sup><\/a>  Is that so?  I\u2019ll send you the first series of biographies next week already.[xxviii]<\/a> The second version is radically altered.  Maybe it will somehow come out not too badly.  I think this is our most sacred duty, because what else is left of them?  But we have to secure it in more places!  Please pass on my most cordial greetings to Zelmanowski and his friends.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            And now we have something to ask of you.  In connection with Mrs M\u2019s[xxix]<\/a> work, her trouble, her efforts on behalf of Mrs Me\u0142ma\u0144ska and the others, she has turned to us with a request for a one-time payment (1 t.) [1000 z\u0142.] for medical help (teeth!).  For many reasons, this request ought to be considered.  We would be most grateful if you would try to find this sum for Mrs M. We received 1,000<\/a> from Czes\u0142awa, which was earmarked for Mrs Herncel.  Mr Dan. gave them another 1,5000 [sic] through me, but he ordered these 1,000 to be temporarily held back.  I am informing you of this.  I have already worked out a plan for a work about J.U.C.  I am to discuss the details with Mr Dan.[xxx]<\/a>  I thank you cordially for you efforts on our behalf.  Our gratitude to you really knows no bounds. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Be well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yours, Ed.[zio]<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[P.S.] Jurek[xxxi]<\/sup><\/a> is returning the book and asks to buy the next one.  If it is not too hard, he asks for a book of the Latin [and] Polish languages and the other books for the first year of high-school.  (Jurek already has History).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

24\/XI [Monday] I\u2019m sending you the first series of biographies.  In the second version they will undergo a radical transformation [przewr\u00f3tka].  I would very much like to have comments and additions from Jele\u0144ski and his friends, which I will willingly take into account in an appropriate transformation of these people.  I have forgotten a great deal, because as I have already written to you memory does not serve me since the operation in 5.[xxxii]<\/sup><\/a>  It is enough therefore to give you certain details and I will take that into account.  I don\u2019t have a copy, because as I told you in the second version it has all been radically changed.  In the last while, our boss[xxxiii]<\/a> has turned to us about buying 2 packages of sweets for the children \u00e0 la T.  Please give me the price and whether it will be possible to get them through you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

[i]<\/sup><\/a> 10: As a rule, amounts were divided by 100 and ten years were subtracted from the date, to make these records look like pre-war records. The usual monthly stipend was 500 z\u0142 per month, so 1,000 z\u0142 would have been enough to support the Ringelblums. as the normal monthly stipend for tProbably 10,000 z\u0142otys, at that time worth about $132 or about $2,300 today (per the \u017bKN report for October 1st<\/sup> 1943, the exchange rate at that time works out to 75.7638 per US$). This would have supported 20 people at the usual rate of 500 z\u0142. per month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[ii]<\/sup><\/a>  Jurek: Ringelblum\u2019s son, Uri.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[iii]<\/a> (Gutman,  ref. Prekerowa): Teresa Nowakowa, a Polish woman who for some time sheltered Ringelblum\u2019s son.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/a>   [iv]<\/sup>  Mr. Jeleniog. <\/a>(Jeleniog\u00f3rski): Ludwik Hirszberg, a wealthy merchant from W\u0142oc\u0142awek, in hiding with his wife R\u00f3\u017ca, daughter Cypora and son Adam, supported by the \u017bKN (GFH 6215(XII)). Looking into in the list of survivors published by the Central Committee of Polish Jewry in Warsaw in June 1945further, we find Cypora from W\u0142oc\u0142awek, two R\u00f3zas and an Ada\u015b from \u0141\u00f3d\u017a, a R\u00f3zia from Zwole\u0144, but no Ludwik.  Looking further into a list of the Warsaw Landsmanschaft in the US occupation zone in Germany in 1948 we find Rosa Hirszberg, daughter of Hersz and Zofja Lewin, b. 19 November 1892, living in Warsaw at Wsp\u00f3lna 17 until 1 September 1939, then on Pa\u0144ska (in the ghetto).<\/a>  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Gutman): The note most likely refers to Hirszberg \u2013 a member of the Central Committee for Refugees (Centralny Komitet Uchod\u017ac\u00f3w – CKU), who was active in the Warsaw Ghetto (Archiwum Ringelbluma, \u017bIH, Ring I, 1360).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/a>   [v]<\/sup>  A pill from the Blei company: a bullet (G. Blei<\/em> = \u201clead\u201d).  There were at least three Warms in hiding: Ber and Mieczys\u0142aw, lawyers, and Jerzy, occupation unknown. Gutman asserts that the reference is to Ber Warm, a high-ranking former ghetto policeman, which would account for Ringelblum\u2019s apparent animosity. However, the \u017bKN extended aid to those in need, irrespective of any political considerations. The Berman Collection also contains two ghetto memoirs by Ber Warm, formerly under catalogue signature 324.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/a>   [vi]<\/sup>  Marek Passenstein, a member of the Oneg Shabat<\/em> circle, living in Ringelblum\u2019s bunker. Gutman adds that he was a ghetto policeman for a time, then worked in CENTOS (Central Orphan Care) [headed by Berman]; that he was close to Ringelblum on the Aryan side, and that he wrote a valuable work on smuggling, published after the war in Biuletyn \u017bIH <\/em>1958 (26), 42-72).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[vii]<\/a> (Gutman: this probably refers to coming under the care of the \u017bKN on the Aryan side).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/a>   [viii]<\/sup>   E.R.: Emmanuel Ringelblum. Trawnicki: the Trawniki labour camp, where Ringelblum was imprisoned in April – August 1943.  Ringelblum writes \u201cTrawnicki i S Ka,\u201d which Gutman renders as \u201c\u2026 i Ska\u201d (i sp\u00f3\u0142ka<\/em>, \u201cand Co.\u201d)  This seems the most probable reading, though it might also refer to the HASAG camp in Skarzysko-Kamienna. Gutman concludes that Ringelblum did not admit people with a damaged reputation in the ghetto into the camp underground.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/a>   [ix]<\/sup>  Gwiazda: Possibly Leon Stern, a Bundist, who was hiding with his wife.  Gwiazda<\/em> in Polish and Stern<\/em> in German or Yiddish mean \u2018Star\u2019. Jele\u0144: Hirsh Berli\u0144ski, ghetto fighter and Left Labour Zionist activist; Ringelblum also sometimes calls him Jele\u0144ski.  Jele\u0144 in Polish means \u201cdeer\u201d, as does Hirsh in Yiddish.  Berli\u0144ski also calls himself Jele\u0144 in his short account of the Ghetto Uprising (Kermish, 604-606).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/a>            [x]<\/sup>  Dolek: Adolf Berman. Gawe\u0142: probably Pawe\u0142 Charmuszko, a Polish peasant, about whom Ringelblum writes (calling him Gawe\u0142 H.) in Stosunki<\/em> p.169. Ringelblum tells Berman not to confuse him with \u201cHorn,\u201d but in the original it is clearly \u201cHorm.\u201d again. missing the connection, and speculates that \u201cBronis\u0142aw\u201d refers to Dawid Klein, a Bundist with wide-ranging contacts who \u201cparticipated in the rescue of Jews on the Aryan side.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

[xi]<\/a>  Edzio: Emmanuel Ringelblum<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/a>            [xii]<\/sup>  Budzy\u0144ski Company: either the Bund, or the labour camp in Budzy\u0144 in which a number of prominent activists were interned (see n.13 re \u201cLipowski\u201d below). Ringelblum usually uses \u201cfirm\u201d or \u201ccompany\u201d to mean \u201cpolitical party\u201d.  J.L. Per: Itzhak Leib Peretz (1852\u20131915), outstanding Yiddish-language writer from Warsaw.  Ringelblum evidently means that Horm. (identity unknown) is also a Yiddish-language writer.  District I: \u017boliborz, a northern district of Warsaw, where many Jews were hiding, especially members of the intelligentsia.  The girls\u2019 boarding school of ” street: the Yehudia<\/em> in Leszno Street, where Ringelblum taught before the war. A number of his fellow-teachers were active in Oneg Shabbat<\/em>, the project to create an archive of the Warsaw ghetto.  The reference therefore may be to literary and historical activity in general.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/a>            [xiii]<\/sup>  J\u00f3zia: Ringelblum\u2019s wife, Judith.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[xiv]<\/a>  \u201cR\u00f3\u017cycki\u201d was the code-name of \u017begota activist Tadeusz Rek, but it is doubtful that that is who is meant here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[xv]<\/a> Samuel Kassow writes: \u201cLipowski is, I think, Lipe Bloch. In early 1944 he was still alive in a labor camp. Berman was trying to get him out and R. probably knew about that\u201d.  He adds: \u201cIn the weeks before the outbreak of the ghetto uprising Bloch worked on a committee to raise money for the \u017bOB. The Germans caught him during the uprising and sent him along with 800 other Jews to the Budzy\u0144 labor camp near Lublin, where the German firm Heinkel had an airplane factory.<\/a> Besides Bloch, this group also included Kolonymous Shapiro, \u2018the Piaseczno rebbe\u2019, who was well known for his writings and talks during the war. Adolf Berman tried to rescue Bloch the same way that he rescued Ringelblum from the Trawniki labor camp-by sending the Polish railway worker Tadeusz Pajewski and his Jewish friend Emilka Kossower to smuggle him out. But Bloch and fifteen other Jews-including Rabbi Shapiro, had taken a solemn vow that they would all stay together, come what may. Pajewski could not take out more than two Jews, and certainly not fifteen. In August 1944 the Germans sent Bloch to the feared Mauthausen camp in Austria. He died sometime before the end of the war.\u201d  

<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

[xvi]<\/a> \u201cthe most worthwhile people have left the partnership and that only third- and fourth-rate people remain.\u201d dRingelblum refers to the fact that much of the Jewish leadership fled to the East in 1939-1940, as Ringeblum himself was urged to do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[xvii]<\/sup><\/a>  Polish-Jewish relations.  (In the original: s.p.\u017c., i.e. stosunki polsko-\u017cydowskie<\/em>).  The reference is to his book, published after the war as Stosunki polsko-\u017cydowskie w czasie drugiej wojny \u015bwiatowej <\/em> (Warszawa: Czytelnik, 1988) ed. by Artur Eisenbach (henceforth Stosunki<\/em>) and Polish-Jewish Relations during the Second World War<\/em> (New York: Howard Fertig, 1976) ed. by Joseph Kermish and Shmuel Krakowski (henceforth Relations <\/em>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[xviii]<\/sup><\/a>  The Lubelskis: literally, people from Lublin.  This may refer to a broken promise by the Polish underground to set up a way-station for Jews escaping from camps in the Lublin area, particularly Poniatowa and Trawniki, which \u201cAntek\u201d Cukierman mentions in his memoir.  (Gutman reads it the same way.) In the days of E.R.: while the ghetto still existed.  A new partnership: an armed resistance movement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[xix]<\/a>  Dr V: Vittel, a transit camp in France to which many of the Hotel Polski people were deported in the summer of 1943.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[xx]<\/sup><\/a>  Mr W\u0119g (W\u0119growski): Hungary.  The reference is to a plan proposed by the Zionist leader Ignacy Szwarzbard in London to smuggle leading Jewish personalities to Hungary. From the London letter: \u201cSome time ago we received from you through the Delegatura a message with a list of people who might have the possibility of making their way to Hungary with the help of the Delegatura.  Among 19 people named in the message only 3 persons were still alive then, found themselves in Warsaw. and were able to take advantage of the proposition: Dr Berman, Dr Ringelblum and Lejzor Lewin. They were enormously grateful to you for remembering about them but did not take advantage of the proposition, feeling that they must continue to do their social duty in the homeland until the end.  Not long ago we intended to send our delegation to Hungary. It was ready to go.  A few days before the date set for moving out, the Hungarian catastrophe broke out [i.e., the German invasion of Hungary on 19 March 1944], which shook us to the core. The first transports of Hungarian Jews have already [i.e. by 24 May 1944] reached Auschwitz and other death camps in Poland.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

[xxi]<\/sup><\/a>  Dan.: Daniel Kaftor (Dawid Guzik), director of the Warsaw branch of the American-Jewish relief organization, the Joint Distribution Committee.  Kaftor visited \u201cKrysia\u201d every Tuesday, and was the main contact between the bunker and the Bermans. Elsewhere in these letters he is referred to as Da., D., Mr D or Mr Knopf (Knopf in German, Guzik in Polish and Kaftor in Hebrew mean \u201cbutton\u201d).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[xxii]<\/sup><\/a>  Our firm: the Left Labour Zionists.  Concept of duty: Ringelblum feels that to take up the offer of  escaping to Hungary would be to abandon his post, and is critical of the party leadership for suggesting it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[xxiii]<\/a>  The Polish expression is \u201cout of the rain and under the drainpipe\u201d.  Ringelblum anticipates that the Hungarian Jews will be rounded up sooner or later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[xxiv]<\/sup><\/a>  Mich.: Possibly Professor Mieczys\u0142aw Micha\u0142owicz, whom Ringelblum mentions in Polish-Jewish Relations as having defended Jews against antisemitic attacks in the 1930s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[xxv]<\/a> Miss Irena: possibly Irena Sawicka, a non-Jewish PPR (Communist Party) activist who was in close contact with the Bermans. However, her name does not appear in Stosunki <\/em>(nor does any other Irena, such as Irena Sendlerowa or Irena Solska).  Possibly it was edited out later on, or possibly \u201cMiss Irena\u201d was a nom-de-guerre.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[xxvi]<\/a> Mr Berge\u0144ski: Bergen-Belsen. Inappropriate behaviour: Bergen-Belsen (like Vittel) at this point functioned as an Aufenthaltslager <\/em>(\u201cholding camp\u201d) or Austauschlager <\/em>(\u201cexchange camp\u201d), holding Jews to be exchanged for Germans interned by the Allies, including Warsaw Jews caught up in the Hotel Polski affair. See Agnieszka Haska\u2019s excellent study of the affair, including Ringelblum\u2019s involvement in promoting the plan. Once it became clear that the necessary documents could be bought for a handsome price, i.e., that it was corrupt,  Ringelblum\u2019s circle was suspicious of the exchange scheme, although Kaftor\/Guzik was at first enthusiastic and had volunteered together with his family.  The Joint\u2019s chairman, J\u00f3zef Gitler-Barski, did volunteer and eventually survived on the \u201cPalestine list.\u201d In August 1943, the Hotel Polski volunteers were transported to Bergen Belsen, Vittel and other camps, after which Ringelblum and Berman lost contact with them. Most of the internees in Bergen Belsen (1700 out of 2300) were transported to Auschwitz in October.  Ringelblum\u2019s state of knowledge can be judged from his London letter, which describes the Hotel Polski affair and its aftermath:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An analogous terrible trap was the \u2018camp for foreigners\u2019 near Hanover. The Germans, with the help of Jewish Gestapo agents, [I think these \u201cJewish Gestapo agents were largely mythical,\u201d but that is a discussion for another time]fished out candidates for departure among the Jews hiding on the Aryan side. They \u2018swore\u2019 that this camp was under the care of the International Red Cross, that everyone who goes there will be saved, etc.  We as the \u017b.K.N. had a decidedly critical attitude to this whole affair, we didn\u2019t lend a hand to it, we advised everyone against it.  Despite that, a few thousand people, either na\u00efve, or hypnotized by the illusion of an \u201cAmerican\u201d passport, or some whose homes were \u201cburnt\u201d and found themselves on the street and facing death, allowed themselves to be taken in by this affair. The first transports supposedly went to Hanover [Bergen-Belsen was near Hanover], the next \u2013 by a circuitous route to Treblinka [actually Auschwitz], straight to the steam chambers! [Ringelblum believed that the method used to kill Jews at Treblinka was suffocation by steam] But the camp near Hanover didn\u2019t last long in its entirety.  After a certain time the majority of Jews were transported out of there to \u2026 Auschwitz. Whether they perished there in the gas chambers or still vegetate in the camp, we don\u2019t know. A small part were sent to the camp in Bergau near Dresden [there was no such camp. The German authorities would often respond to requests for information about the whereabouts of someone who had been killed by saying that they had been sent to \u201cBergau\u201d or a number of other imaginary camps].  A tiny part remained in the camp near Hanover. Address of the camp: Bergen, Kreis Zelle bei Hannover, Aufenhaltslager f\u00fcr S\u00fcdamerikaner. [i.e the holding camp at Bergen-Belsen for people with Latin-American passports awaiting repatriation under the Foreign Office\u2019s \u201cHeimschaffungsaktion\u201d (repatriation action).] We have no direct contact with the camp. Do you have contact?  What do you know about the fate of those transported to Auschwitz and near Dresden? What do you know about the fate of Perle, Buksbaum and others? What does the situation in Vittel look like?  Do you have news from Itzhak Katznelson?  Move great springs to save them! Alarm the ICRC! Report to us about these matters.  [UPST MSW t.46 p14ff, p.6 of the letter]<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[xxvii]<\/sup><\/a> The writer Perelski: Yehoshua Perle (1888-1944), Yiddish-language poet and novelist, who gave himself up at the Hotel Polski, was imprisoned in Bergen-Belsen and later died in Auschwitz.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[xxviii]<\/a> Biographies: of Mordechai Anielewicz; Itzhak Giterman (director of the Joint in Poland); Shachno Efroim Sagan (1892-1942), a Communist activist; historians Ignacy Schiper, Majer Balaban, Israel Osterzetzer (d.1939) and Adolf R\u00f3\u017ca\u0144ski (1917-1942); Menachem Linder and Dr J. Lipowski, economists and social activists; Dr Edmund Stein, docent of the Judaic Institute in Warsaw; ethnographer Shmul Lehman; and writers Yehoshua Perle (1888-1942), Jachiel Lerer (1910-1942), Shlomo Gilbert (1885-1942), Kalman Lis, Hillel Zeitlin (1872-1942), his son Elkhanan (d. 1942) and grandson (d. 1943), Israel Stern, Jakir Warszawski, Itzhak Bernstein, a poet named Szternberg, Alter Kacyne, Henryka \u0141azowert\u00f3wna (1910-1942), Gustawa Jarecka, W\u0142adys\u0142aw Szlengel (d. 1943), Cecylia S\u0142\u0105pakowa,  a woman poet named Barman; journalists Ben-Tsion Chilinowicz, Aron Einhorn, Shaul Stupnicki, Selim Berenholc, Ber Ajzik or Ekerman, Mordechai Rogowoj; actors Klara Sega\u0142owicz, Ajzyk Samberg, Estera Goldinberg, Mordechai Mazo, Chana Braz, Wiskind, Mowszowski, Kutner, Weinberg, Sandler, Dora Fakel, Dawid Szerman, Lurie Kurc and Gershon German; musicians: the composer  Saks, the brothers Jakub and Israel Gladsztajn, choir directors; conductors Szymon Pulman, Marian Neuteich, pianists Wiera Neumark and Maks Filaj, singer Marysia Ajzensztadt; cellist Arkady Flatau; teachers Szyja Braude, Janusz Korczak, Roza Symchowicz, Dr Szymon Lubelski, Natan Smolar, Herzlicht, Dr Estera markin, Aron Koni\u0144ski, Dr M. Tauber, Dr Micha\u0142 Brandstaetter, Mostkow, Maria Klepfisz, Mina Abelman, M. Kaplan, Itzhak Wolfowicz, Eugeniusz Braude, Mrs Lichtenstein, Mrs Szpacenkopf, Stefania Szwajgier, Ela Tenenbaum-Kagan; lawyers Aleksander Margolis, Leon Berenson, Bra\u0144ski, L. Baumberg, Micha\u0142 Suryc, Stanis\u0142aw Benkiel, Gamarnik\u00f3w, Boles\u0142aw Rozensztat, Leonard Himelfarb, Seweryn Szarograder and Perkal. The biographies range from brief notes to several pages. After the war, Adolf Berman gave them to the Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw. Evidently not to the taste of the Communist authorities, they were published in the \u00e9migr\u00e9 Polish cultural journal Kultura (Paris) and, much later, included in Artur Eisenbach\u2019s edition of Ringelblum\u2019s  Chronicle of the Warsaw Ghetto (Warsaw: Czytelnik, 1988) pp 495-629. To my knowledge they have never been published in the original Yiddish. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

[xxix]<\/a> Mrs M.:  Ma\u0142gorzata Wolska, the mother of Mieczys\u0142aw Wolski, the market gardener who was the owner of the property in which bunker Krysia was built.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[xxx]<\/a> Probably Ringelblum means J.U.S. (J\u00fcdische Unterst\u00fctzungsstelle<\/em>), an official aid agency set up by the Germans to channel aid money to Jews still in the camps and headed by Michael Weichert. Ringelblum was quite concerned about this organization, as we can infer from the London letter: \u201cWe were confused and shaken by the information in your letters that you are sending most of the money for helping Jews through the International Red Cross to Krakow for \u201cJus\u201d into Weichert\u2019s hands!!  After all we have telegraphed you repeatedly and categorically warned you against \u201cJus\u201d as a German agency!  Could the Geneva office of the [World Jewish] Cogress been sending medicine and food to Krak\u00f3w without consulting with you?! We don\u2019t understand how this could have happened.\u201d [UPST MSW-t46 p14ff]  Sam Kassow suggests that J.U.C. may mean the J.D.C. (Joint Distribution Committee), of which Kaftor\/Guzik was the representative in Warsaw, i.e. that Ringelblum may have been planning a history of the J.D.C.; but Kaftor would also have been a likely source of information about J.U.S. and money coming from abroad, which was clearly preoccupying Ringelblum at the time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[xxxi]<\/sup><\/a> Ringelblum\u2019s son, Uri<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[xxxii]<\/sup><\/a> Either the liquidation of the Warsaw Ghetto in May 1943 or Ringelblum\u2019s arrest and deportation to the Trawniki labour camp in the same month. Ringelblum writes elsewhere that his memory has been affected by his imprisonment in Trawniki.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[xxxiii]<\/a>  our boss: Mieczys\u0142aw Wolski, the market gardener under whose greenhouse bunker Krysia was located (also Mr M.).<\/p>\n\n\n\n