The story of the Oyneg Shabes archive. Between 1940-43 a group of dedicated writers, led by historian Emanuel Ringeblum, secretly recorded daily Jewish existence for the 500,000 souls trapped in the Warsaw Ghetto. The project became a race against time -history as survival. Anton Lesser narrates this 10 part series of the lives, stories & destruction of the Ghetto. Episode 4-The Jewish Postman. With Alfred Molina as Peretz Opoczynski.

In the middle of Europe, in the middle of the 20th Century, a half million Jewish men, women & children were herded into a prison city within a city. Walled off & surrounded by the German occupiers & their collaborators. How do you tell the world about your life and fate? Historian and activist Emanuel Ringelblum devised and directed a clandestine archive- codename Oyneg Shabes (Joy of the Sabbath) to chronicle every aspect of their existence. He recruited over 60 'zamlers' or gatherers to write, collect & compile thousands of pages-diaries, essays, poems, photographs, statistical studies, art, ephemera -a historical treasure that was buried even as the Ghetto was being extinguished so that the world might read and understand. Listen to their stories

Episode 4-The Jewish Postman. Separated from the rest of Warsaw parallel institutions and jobs were needed. Peretz Opoczynski trudged up & down the ruined buildings of the ghetto to deliver eagerly sought letters from loved ones & from abroad.

Narration by Anton Lesser & featuring Alfred Molina. Translation by David Suchoff. Historical adviser Samuel Kassow. Written & produced by Mark Burman.
For more information on the Oyneg Shabes/Ringeblum archive go to the website of the Jewish Historical Institute https://cbj.jhi.pl/ Show less