Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw is in the group of twelve organizations taking part in the major European project Judaica Europeana. ZIH joined eleven institutes and organizations from London, Frankfurt, Athens, Bologna, Paris and Rome to digitize the cultural treasures of European and render them accessible to the public.
The Jewish History Quarterly, a journal published by the Jewish Historical Institute, has been included in the Master Journal List as the only Polish historical journal beside Acta Poloniae Historica. Master Journal List is the major index of key scientific journals in the world. It is edited and updated by the Institute for Scientific Information.
Children of the Holocaust survivors set up a new association called "Drugie Pokolenie" (Second Generation) in Warsaw. If you would like to join or share your experience e-mail us: drugie.pokolenie@jewish.org.pl
Prof. Dr. Marcin Wodziński is this year's winner of the Jan Karski and Pola Nirenska Prize.
TO STAY OR GO? : Jews in Europe in the immediate aftermath of the Holocaust
Call for Papers
International Conference at the German Historical Institute in Warsaw, 5-7 December 2011
Organized by: Jewish Historical Institute, German Historical Institute Warsaw, Nordost-Institut Lüneburg at the University of Hamburg.
Closing date for contributions: 18 May 2011
On November 16, the German authorities in occupied Warsaw ordered the ghetto to be closed. Surrounded by a newly built wall with barbed wire on top and guarded by gendarmes and policemen, this city area held nearly 400,000 inhabitants. The closure was preceded by a huge shuffle: over hundred thousand of Christian inhabitants had to leave the ghetto area and even more Jewish inhabitants of Warsaw and nearby towns were forced to move into the ghetto. The area was initially c370 ha, in time it was being comprised. Nearly 100,000 died of hunger and typhus. In summer 1942 the Germans deported 300,000 people and murdered them in the gas chambers of Treblinka. On April 19, 1943 the uprising started in the getto to last till mid-May. The fighters and other Jews remaining in the getto were killed or perished in the fires, systematically set up by German forces. The captured Jews were murdered in November 1943 at the Majdanek, Poniatowa and Trawniki camps. A few survived in hiding.
Emanuel Ringelblum wrote:
“My Dear,
The Saturday the Ghetto was introduced [16th of November] was terrible. People in the street didn’t know it was to be a closed ghetto, so it came like a thunderbolt. Details of German, Polish and Jewish guards stood at every street corner searching passers-by to decide whether or not they had the right to pass. Jewish women found the markets outside the Ghetto closed to them. There was an immediate shortage of bread and other produce. There’s been a real orgy of high prices ever since. There are long queues in front of every food store, and everything is being bought up. Many items suddenly disappeared from the shops. [...] Neither Saturday nor Sunday did the Jewish doctors get passes. [...] Saturday Jewish workers were not allowed to leave the city on their outside work details. On the first day after the Ghetto was closed, many Christians brought bread for their Jewish acquaintances and friends. This was a mass phenomenon. Meanwhile, Christian friends are helping Jews bring produce in the Ghetto.”
(Notes from the Warsaw Ghetto: the Journal of Emanuel Ringelblum)