Emmanuel Ringelman archived life and death in the Warsaw ghetto, and then buried the archives in milk containers that were unearthed after the war. The documents from the milk cans have been resources for historians on the Continent for some time, but as of yet seem to have been little known in the English-speaking world.
Samuel Kassow has set out to correct that. Kassow, a professor at Trinity College in Hartford, Conn., is the author of WHO WILL WRITE OUR HISTORY: REDISCOVERING A HIDDEN ARCHIVE FROM THE WARSAW GHETTO. The clothbound volume came out in 2007. It is just now available in paperback.
I've learned of it -- indeed, frankly I learned of the name Ringelblum for the first time -- through a brief review in the weekend edition of the Financial Times, by Eva Hoffman.
So I won't bother with my usual pose as a know-it-all. As a know-nothing, I'll just pass on the link. Here it is: Hoffman's review.
Knowledge is warranted belief -- it is the body of belief that we build up because, while living in this world, we've developed good reasons for believing it. What we know, then, is what works -- and it is, necessarily, what has worked for us, each of us individually, as a first approximation. For my other blog, on the struggles for control in the corporate suites, see www.proxypartisans.blogspot.com.
Knowledge is warranted belief -- it is the body of belief that we build up because, while living in this world, we've developed good reasons for believing it. What we know, then, is what works -- and it is, necessarily, what has worked for us, each of us individually, as a first approximation. For my other blog, on the struggles for control in the corporate suites, see www.proxypartisans.blogspot.com.
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Eva Hoffman, in the article to which you link, refers to the Nazi's "inhuman cruelty." She should have said "inhumane," because the Nazis were all too human. We give our species excessive credit to think otherwise.
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