The YIVO Tradition and the Foundation and Activities of the Oneg Shabbat Group
On 16 December 2025, an academic seminar titled The YIVO Tradition and the Foundation and Activities of the Oneg Shabbat Group was held by Dr. Eleonora Bergman.
The Oneg Shabbat group included more than a dozen individuals who were connected in various ways with the Vilnius-based YIVO or its branches in Warsaw, Łódź, and other cities. However, they did not form a separate subgroup within Oneg Shabbat. Emanuel Ringelblum was one pf the founders of YIVO, and his cooperation with this institute played a significant role in shaping Oneg Shabbat’s methods of operation. Each of the other group members contributed their own experience, helping to achieve a shared goal: to produce scholarly documentation of the life and death of Jews throughout occupied Poland in all its aspects. The Speaker presents these figures by showing their connections with YIVO and their later work for the underground Archive.
Dr Eleonora Bergman – a graduate of the Faculty of Architecture at the Warsaw University of Technology, she holds a PhD in Humanities awarded by the Institute of Art History of the University of Warsaw. For nearly 30 years, she was affiliated with the Jewish Historical Institute, where she co-founded, together with Jan Jagielski, the Monuments Documentation Department and later served as Deputy Director and Director of the Institute for several years. Since retiring in 2012, she has continued to be actively involved in the works on the complete edition of the Ringelblum Archive in both Polish and English. She is a Knight of the Order of the Legion of Honour and a recipient of the City of Warsaw Award as well as the Professor Jan Zachwatowicz Award of PKN ICOMOS.
YouTube
