The Warsaw Ghetto Workshops: Perspectives of Space and Time in Emanuel Ringelblum and Reuven Ben Shem's Diaries

In: Studia Universitatis Babeş-Bolyai. Historia, Band 66, Heft Special Issue, S. 137-150

Abstract

"In this paper, I analyze the notion of time and space in the small factories of the Warsaw Ghetto, commonly known as shops, through a close reading of the diaries written in the Ghetto by Emanuel Ringelblum and Reuven Feldschu Ben Shem. In the Warsaw Ghetto of July 22, 1942, there were but two options for Jews: being deported to Treblinka or ""postponing"" the death sentence by becoming a shop worker. As long as one worked in a shop, one's life ー and only one's life, not his family's ー was spared for a while. The authors of the diaries who will be presented, both worked in the shops, and in their writings, they exposed how space and time became significant oppressing factors. As I will show, every familiar perception was challenged in this space of an imposed slave-like existence. Keywords: Jews, 2nd World War, Warsaw Ghetto, Treblinka. "