Professor Samuel D. Kassow, the world's leading authority on Emanuel Ringelblum, discussing his new book, Who Will Write Our History?: Emanuel Ringelblum, the Warsaw Ghetto, and the Oyneg Shabes Archive.

New York, NY, January 4, 2008 – The Consulate General of the Republic of Poland in New York and the American Society for Jewish Heritage in Poland (www.asjhip.org) are pleased to announce a special event: Professor Samuel D. Kassow, the world's leading authority on Emanuel Ringelblum, discussing his new book, Who Will Write Our History?: Emanuel Ringelblum, the Warsaw Ghetto, and the Oyneg Shabes Archive.

In 1940, the historian Emanuel Ringelblum established a clandestine organization, code named Oyneg Shabes, in Nazi-occupied Warsaw to study and document all facets of Jewish life in wartime Poland and to compile an archive that would preserve this history for posterity.  As the Final Solution unfolded, although decimated by murders and deportations, the group persevered in its work until the spring of 1943. Of its more than 60 members, only three survived. Ringelblum and his family perished in March 1944. But before he died, he managed to hide thousands of documents in milk cans and tin boxes. Searchers found two of these buried caches in 1946 and 1950.

Highlighting the close link between pre-war Jewish culture and the sense of national mission that inspired the Oyneg Shabes, Who Will
Write Our History tells the gripping story of Ringelblum and his determination to use historical scholarship and the collection of
documents to resist Nazi oppression.

Samuel D. Kassow is the Charles Northam Professor of History at Trinity College. He is the author of Students, Professors, and the State in Tsarist Russia, 1884–1917 and editor (with Edith W. Clowes) of Between Tsar and People: The Search for a Public Identity in Tsarist Russia. He lives in Hartford, Connecticut.

LISTINGS:

WHAT: A free lecture by Professor Samuel D. Kassow discussing his book, "Who Will Write Our History?:  Emanuel Ringelblum, the Warsaw Ghetto, and the Oyneg Shabes Archive” presented by the American Society for Jewish Heritage in Poland and the Consulate General of Poland in New York.
WHEN: Tuesday, January 22, 2008, 7 PM
WHERE: Consulate General of Poland in New York, 233 Madison Avenue at 37th Street, New York, NY 10016
TRANSPORTATION: Subway 6 to 33rd Street, 4,5,7, S to Grand Central
ADMISSION: Free.  Photo ID required for admittance
 
Presented by
The American Society for Jewish Heritage in Poland
and The Consulate General of Poland  in New York

For additional information and press materials, please contact Kinga Marszal-Norsworthy,
by phone (646) 237-2112 or email: km@polishconsulateny.org