Who will tell the story?
An emotionally gripping new performance for young people about the power of the written word

Archivists at the Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw sort through the contents of the Ringelblum archive, retrieved from two milk cans discovered in 1946 and 1950 in the ruins of buildings in the former ghetto. — Yad Vashem Photo Archives

Warsaw, Poland; fall of 1939: Historian Emanuel Ringelblum begins a secret archive. He and a small hand-picked group gather stories from fellow Jews, young and old, in the largest ghetto in Europe, the Warsaw ghetto. In November 1940 the ghetto was sealed off from the rest of the city by the occupying Germans.

Calling themselves Oneg Shabbat ("Joy of Sabbath"), the group collects music, poetry, children's essays, and eyewitness accounts by ordinary citizens, testifying to unfolding horrors in their increasingly desperate circumstances. They chronicle it all: deportations, beatings, starvation, and, importantly, their own ingenuity, spirit, and resilience under impossible conditions.

Ringelblum's courageous group risked their lives to bury their cherished words underneath the ghetto soil — in three milk cans, and a few metal boxes. Two of the milk cans have been found, but one still remains undiscovered, silently waiting to reveal more about the lives of the Warsaw ghetto inhabitants whose most precious legacy lies in their final gift to us: the telling of their own incredible story in their own powerful words.

Join actor Marc Speigel as he portrays Emanuel Ringelblum and tells the story of this incredible effort to preserve history for posterity.

This is a program every young person should experience.
Recommended for children age 10 and above.