What the Ringelblum Archive Means to Us

A small exhibition at the Jewish Historical Institute, prepared for the 80th anniversary of the recovery of the Ringelblum Archive. Two display cases in the main hall tell the story not of the Archive itself but of its search, recovery and conservation - of what the survivors did after the war. The exhibition runs from 17 September to 30 November 2026.

The Jewish Historical Institute on the exhibition (translated from the Polish original):

The exhibition is devoted to the recovery and conservation of the material gathered in the Underground Archive of the Warsaw Ghetto - collected under the German occupation by the team around the historian and social activist Emanuel Ringelblum, and named the Ringelblum Archive after him. It consists of two display cases entitled “…a national treasure lies there under the ruins” and “To preserve for posterity”.

The documents, extracts of testimony and photographs presented here tell the story of the search for the Archive, undertaken by Holocaust survivors immediately after the war. They also depict the struggle to save the contents of the deposit once it had been lifted out of the ground. The search for the Archive, the later effort to read the documents it had preserved, and the work to secure them properly and make them available are part of the Archive’s history and, at the same time, a fulfilment of its creators’ testament. The exhibition accompanies an academic seminar held on the 80th anniversary of the recovery of the Ringelblum Archive, taking place on 17 September 2026 at the Jewish Historical Institute. The exhibition will be on view until 30 November 2026.

The exhibition was created by Dr Ewa Koźmińska-Frejlak and Marta Janczewska.

What to expect

This is a small display: two cases in the institute’s main hall, entitled “…a national treasure lies there under the ruins” and “To preserve for posterity”. You will see documents, extracts of testimony and photographs.

The centre of gravity sits elsewhere than in most accounts of the Ringelblum Archive: not on its creation in the ghetto, but on what came afterwards - the search undertaken by survivors immediately after the war, the reading of the recovered documents, and the fight to secure them.

The opening coincides with an academic seminar marking the 80th anniversary of the Archive’s recovery, scheduled for 17 September 2026 at 10:00. Tickets and opening hours are on the institute’s own page.