A few blocks over from Dzielna, every Saturday Emanuel Ringelblum met with the Oneg Shabbat group: a collective of intellectuals, rabbis, and social workers who, feeling a responsibility to the Jewish people, were driven by a need to bear witness and chronicle the war from a Jewish perspective. The Nazis relentlessly documented Polish Jews through photography and film. The Oneg Shabbat was determined that the Germans’ biased version of events not be the only history. Its members compiled a large archive of materials for future generations, with objects and writings about life in the Warsaw ghetto, all of which they later buried in milk cans. Among the items that survived is a crayon sketch of a dozing toddler, Sleeping Girl, drawn by her mother, painter Gela Seksztajn. The intimate depiction of a dark-haired girl lying on her side, curled over her arm, shows a rare moment of calm. “I do not ask for praise,” the artist’s testimony read, “only for me and my daughter to be remembered. This talented little girl is named Margolit Lichtensztajn.”
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Conditions in the Warsaw ghetto deteriorated rapidly. “The great crowding, the loneliness, the tormented worries about making a living,” a female comrade wrote. “Jews dragged all this out onto the streets. Jews walked around in groups, speaking their hearts.” Most buildings extended back from the street into mazes of units （richer folks lived in the front apartments with good light）。 Inner courtyards served as meeting spots and even hosted communal organizations. Despite the loud social thrum, hunger, illness, and terror prevailed. Disease was rampant, and corpses lined the streets. Jewish businesses were shuttered, and work was hard to come by. Bloated bellies and desperate pleas for food were a constant backdrop. Zivia found the children’s cries for bread, audible all night, tormenting.
Zivia and Frumka placed even more emphasis on bolstering the Jews’ spirits and continued to run their soup kitchen. The comrades divided their meager portions of soup with each new member, setting out a long row of dishes with their lunch leftovers. But after a while, their own hunger grew too intense, and they stopped this custom.
Countless Jewish women rose to lead and help their people in Warsaw. Nearly two thousand “House Committees” provided medical care and cultural activities—almost all were organized by female volunteers. The Oneg Shabbat member Rachel Auerbach, an eminent journalist, fiction writer, and philosophy graduate, ran a soup kitchen. Paula Alster, who with her “Greek appearance and grand poise” had been arrested for political work while still in middle school, led a kitchen that became a center of underground activity. Basia Berman, an impassioned educator, founded a children’s library from scratch. Bundists Manya Wasser and underground leader Sonya Novogrodsky ran a workshop where they turned discarded clothes into garments for street children, for whom they also provided food and medical attention. Shayndl Hechtkop, an honors graduate from Warsaw University’s law faculty and an active Freedom member, ran the Peretz library, led a people’s kitchen, and organized academic conferences. When she was captured by Nazis, the movement arranged to free her, but she refused to leave her mother’s side.
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As circumstances in Warsaw worsened over the year, Freedom’s work continued outside the city. Movements collaborated and established countrywide programs for youth living in fear and inactivity. Zivia frequently left Warsaw to coordinate groups of pupils, meeting with local activists at train stations to save time. It was important to her to set up lines of communication that could function across ghetto walls—a visionary priority that would soon pay off.
To accomplish this, Zivia sent comrades from Warsaw to the towns; the type of daring work Frumka had been doing all along. These messengers—young women, usually with Aryan appearances—connected with designated locals and instructed them to create a “five”： a group of five people who would carry out pioneer work. Chana Gelbard was an early courier. For her initial mission, Zivia gave Chana fake Polish documents. She pretended to be a traveling merchant, when she was really distributing movement literature. At the time, train travel was difficult even for Poles, and Chana went by wagon, hypercautious, suspicious of everyone, including her fellow Jews. Whenever the young woman received an address from central command, she took pains to make sure that she was speaking to the right person, that he would not lead her into a trap, and that he would not think she was a Gestapo plant. She interrogated him before handing out any pages.