The Most Important Holocaust Story Never Told

-Source-Tablet- Its taken 70-plus years but whats arguably the most important Holocaust story never told is being unveiled in a docudrama this weekend at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival. Who Will Write Our History is the story of the men and women who created the Oyneg Shabes Archive a trove of once-hidden documents essays and reportage that chronicled in real time what life and death looked like in the Nazi-occupied Warsaw Ghetto. The star if you can call him that is Emanuel Ringelblum a Polish-Jewish historian and community organizer who led the secret project with the sensitivity of a sacred mission. The film had an under-the-radar world premiere this spring in Warsaw at Polin the Museum of the History of Polish Jews during the 75th anniversary of the ghettos uprising. A 2007 book also called Who Will Write Our History? by historian Samuel D. Kassow on which the film is based was critically acclaimed but it wasnt a popular bestseller. Then by chance film director Roberta Grossman read a review in The New Republic and decided she had to turn it into a movie. With collaborators Ringelblum fanned out through the ghetto recruiting some 60 writers scholars teachers community activists rabbis poor artisans wealthy businessmen and even children to the project. When their survival looked doomed they hid the archive in two large aluminum milk cans and up to 20 tin boxes. Ringelblum used the Yiddish term Oyneg Shabes literally the joy of the Sabbath" as the code name because his staffs custom was to meet on Saturdays. Instead of toasting the day of rest with schnapps and herringthey were lucky to have scraps of breadthey would clandestinely discuss plans formulate questions for major projects review material make assignments and keep track of expenditures and money raised for their endeavor. Among them was Rachel Auerbach a journalist who has a prominent role in the film. Ringelblum had asked her to help set up a soup kitchen and write what she observed. She originally turned him down because like so many from the Jewish intelligentsia she was planning to flee war-torn Warsaw. But she stayed after Ringelblum told her Not everyone is allowed to run." Although the archive was uncovered in the rubble of Warsaw after the war the challenge of bringing the stories to the world has been daunting.