M.11 - The Mersik-Tenenbaum Archive: Documentation regarding the Bialystok Ghetto underground

M.11 - The Mersik-Tenenbaum Archive: Documentation regarding the Bialystok Ghetto underground The archive gets its name from Mordechai Tenenbaum-Tamaroff, who set up the archive in early 1943, and Zvi Mersik, one of Mordechai Tenenbaum's outstanding aides, who continued to maintain the archive after Mordechai Tenenbaum-Tamaroff's death. Most of the documentation, which was created between July 1941 and April 1943, is located in the Yad Vashem Archive. The original material is not concentrated in one place: some of it is housed in the Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw, and the rest of the material is still in the hands of unknown private individuals. There are only three original documents in the Yad Vashem Archives; all the rest are copies prepared from the original with great precision by the Historical Committee in Bialystok in 1946. Every document that was originally typed on a typewriter was copied on a typewriter, and every document that was in manuscript form in the original was copied by hand. The paper size of the copies is approximately the paper size of the original, and every copy is stamped with the stamp of the Historical Committee in Bialystok and assigned a serial number, as well as the note: "Copy of the material from the ghetto archive dug up from deep in the ground outside the ghetto". On the margins of every copy the printed signature of Attorney M. Turek, Director of the Historical Committee in Bialystok appears, certifying that the copy is an exact replica of the original. This archival collection, together with a collection of the testimonies (copies) of the Historical Committee in Bialystok from 1945-1947, was submitted to the Yad Vashem Archive in 1955 by Attorney M. Turek (Tamir). Over the years the Yad Vashem Archive has been able to complement the Tenenbaum-Mersik Archive with copies received from the Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw and the Ghetto Fighters' House, as well as by photocopying several documents belonging to Ms. Nina Tenenbaum, Mordechai Tenenbaum's sister. The Tenenbaum-Mersik Archive includes Judenrat documentation from the Bialystok Ghetto, writings of Tenenbaum-Tamaroff, testimonies, memoirs and reports about Ponary and Treblinka, the Bialystok Ghetto, the Grodno Ghetto and the villages in the districts where these cities were located. Additionally, there are personal documents belonging to those who perished in Treblinka, Zvi Mersik and others. Since, to some extent, the collection of testimonies of the Jewish Historical Committee in Bialystok (1945-1947) complements the Tenenbaum-Mersik Archive, we decided to include both collections in one Record Group ("Inventory List" in the original). The letter "B" before the number indicates that the testimonies belong to the Bialystok Historical Committee collection. For further details regarding this archive, see Yad Vashem Studies, Jerusalem, 1958.