The Ackerman Center hosted a virtual screening of the documentary film Who Will Write Our History, where viewers were given the opportunity to watch the film free of charge for two weeks prior to a special online discussion. This powerful documentary is based on diary excerpts taken from the Oneg Shabbat archive, initiated by esteemed historian, Dr. Emanuel Ringelblum, who recruited members from the ghetto to collect and record documentation from eyewitnesses that chronicled the everyday life of the Jews in the Warsaw ghetto.
On February 24th, Dr. David Patterson, Hillel A. Feinberg Distinguished Chair of Holocaust Studies, held an in-depth discussion about the film, in which he emphasized a closer reading of the film through a lens of a Jewish perspective, teaching and tradition is crucial for developing a deeper understanding about the metaphysical dimensions of the Holocaust.
Dr. Patterson stressed the film illustrates the targeted systematic assault on the Jews and Judaism and highlighted the religious origins as key points of reference throughout the film. He opened the discussion by calling attention to the significance of the film’s title, which raises questions that are central to the essence of the annihilation. The first two parts of the question concern the physical destruction of the Jewish people, concerning both who will write and who will transmit Jewish history? The second part of the question itself has a negative connotation, one that implies an unspoken understanding surrounding the question of who will be written out of history.
The members of Oneg Shabbat recognized these questions and saw the urgency in recording and collecting every piece of documentation that they could in order to prevent this history from being forgotten. Dr. Patterson emphasized that this understanding of keeping a historical record chronicling the events of the Warsaw Ghetto provides evidence testifying to the nature of the Nazis’ assault on the Jews, in which Jewish theological traditions and teachings form the foundations for the assault.
Dr. Patterson pointed out religiosity as one central theme of the film, highlighted that this can be seen as an attack based on the theological precepts upon which Nazi aktions were organized, scheduling round-ups and deportations to take place on Hebrew holy days. Additionally, the assault on the rites and rituals of death are of utmost importance in the destruction. Dr. Patterson called attention to Dr. Ringelblum’s diary entries, where he noted that the constant presence of death that haunted every specter of ghetto life was a source of extreme torment for many of Oneg Shabbot’s writers. Dr. Patterson characterized the ghetto as “the landscape of death,” and remarked that these horrific scenes documented by the archivists serve as evidence to show that the ghetto itself, was an instrument of extermination, designed to annihilate Jewish existence just as much as the death camps.
Dr. Patterson concluded his discussion by stressing the importance of the Jewish narration employed in the film, which allowed the Jewish voices of the Jewish dead to speak for themselves. Dr. Patterson posed a question to the audience, who will write Jewish history now? In consideration of rising global antisemitism and a growing tendency to de-Judaize the Holocaust. The transmission of testimonies, such as those from the Oneg Shabbot archive, implicates us as witnesses, as the receivers of this sacred testimony we are entrusted with a sacred obligation to respond to the outcry of suffering that fell on deaf ears during the Holocaust. In doing so, we assume the responsibility to the protection of these memories, an endeavor to ensure, just as the members of Oneg Shabbot that the Jews and Judaism are not written out of history.
