Sample Sources
The sources below are those contained in our three curated collections—covering themes of Passover, Gender Roles, and Holocaust Resistance. They represent a fraction of the thousands of sources that will be available when the full site launches in 2024.
A Report Concerning the Art College
The People’s Art College in Vitebsk, fulfilling the needs of the whole Western Land, is a ripe necessity, especially since our Revolutionary time compels us with unusual force to undertake the…
The Five
This episode occurred on Deribasov Street, about two years after the beginning of our story.
At that time our editorial office was located at the upper end of the street, in the…
A Man and His Parrot
It is barely six in the morning and the stars are still out, but Manuel has to get up.
It isn’t a job that wakes him. That obligation used to get him right to his feet, but now? Now just getting…
Letter on Education
With the grace of God, Friday, before the Shabbat of the reading of Noah, 5672 [1911].
To our fellow Hasidim (in the city of Turov),
My stomach turned and my ears burned on hearing the terrible news…
A Bintel Brief
Dear Editor,I am one of those unfortunate girls thrown by fate into a dark and dismal shop, and I need your counsel.Along with my parents, sisters and brothers, I came from Russian Poland where I had…
Who Is Vildman the Wrestler?
Among the wrestlers competing in the current tournament in the Panorama [Building] on Karowa Street, fighting for the 1912 Polish Championship, is a Jew called Vildman.He has become quite famous, in…
And Thus, Perhaps, I Will Reflect . . . ?
I lived, but as for living I was shiftless in my life,
knew always I’d be buried here when all was done,
that year layers itself upon year, clod on clod, stone on stone,
that in the chill and wormy…
A Cup of Tears: A Diary of the Warsaw Ghetto
If one looks closely at the passers-by in the streets of the Warsaw ghetto one can see that the overwhelming majority of them are not originally from Warsaw, but are from…
Letters from Westerbork
Finding something to say about Westerbork is also difficult because of its ambiguous character. On the one hand it is a stable community in the making, a forced one to be sure, yet with all the…
Blood
On the nights before Passover, Rosh Hashanah, and Yom Kippur, my mother would send me to the butcher with some birds to be slaughtered according to ritual so the meat would be kosher—that is, clean…
As You Die There in Agony, Brother
As you die there in agony, brother,
Don’t be calling your comrades in vain.
Let me warm my hands on your body,
Make good use of the blood from your veins.
Stop crying, stop groaning, don’t be a…
The Battle of the Ink-Drawn Flag
He had traveled to Germany once, where he visited a displaced-persons camp. He was to meet Party members in one of the small Bavarian towns, and when he arrived at the “camp,” it turned out to be a…