Ringelblum, Emanuel

Emanuel Ringelblum (21 Nov. 1900 – 10? March 1944) was a Polish Jew who was forced to live in the Warsaw Ghetto during World War II. He organized an intelligence-gathering organization in the Ghetto named “Oneg Szabat.” It gathered documents and recorded witness testimonies, among them some from individuals who claimed to have escaped from the Treblinka and Chełmno camps. Ringelblum managed to leave the ghetto just prior to the uprising, but was discovered in March 1944 and presumably executed shortly afterwards.

Some of the documentation created by Ringelblum was discovered in the ruins of Warsaw after the war. Although damaged, most of the material discovered was salvaged, and is now known as the Ringelblum Archives. In the context of the Holocaust, of special interest are recorded testimonies, and chronicle entries allegedly based on testimonies, dealing with the alleged extermination camps Belzec, Chełmno, Sobibór and Treblinka. They show the rumor mill at work, spreading wildly disparate nonsense about these camps, even from an orthodox point of view.

(For more details, see the section “Propaganda History” of the entries on Belzec, Chełmno, Sobibór and Treblinka.)