Investigating life for Jewish people trapped in the Warsaw Ghetto through the finds of the extraordinary Oyneg Shabbes Archive
Dr Avril Alba is Associate Professor of Holocaust Studies and Jewish Civilisation at the University Of Sydney, Australia
The Warsaw Ghetto was the largest of the Nazi ghettos during WW2 and the Holocaust. It
was established in Nov 1940 and, at its height, as many as 460,000 Jews were imprisoned
there. In the summer of 1942, at least 254,000 ghetto residents were sent to the Treblinka
extermination camp. The ghetto was demolished by the Germans in May 1943 after the
Warsaw Ghetto Uprising had temporarily halted the deportations.
Buried in milk cans and tin boxes under the rubble of the Warsaw ghetto, the Oyneg
Shabbes archive constitutes the largest collection of Jewish writing about the ghetto. The
compilation of the archive was both an everyday and extraordinary act of courage and
defiance that has bequeathed to us knowledge that otherwise would have perished
alongside its creators. This lecture will discuss the origins and content of the archive and
its implications for remembering the Holocaust today.
Booking: https://www.exeter-cathedral.org.uk/whats-on/
