We Must Not Think of Ourselves: A Novel

We Must Not Think of Ourselves is a historical novel inspired by true events, specifically the Oneg Shabbat Archive, which Lauren Grodstein encountered during a trip to Poland in 2019. The secret underground archive was founded by Jewish historian and social worker Emanuel Ringelblum (“Emanuel Ringelblum and the Creation of the Oneg Shabbat Archive.” Holocaust Encyclopedia), who is a character in the book. The archive began as an individual chronicle, but Ringelblum began to invite multiple contributors once the Jews in Warsaw were relocated to the Warsaw ghetto in 1939.

Ringelblum organized the information and reports that became a part of the archive through the refugee points, soup kitchens, and underground schools in the ghetto. This is how Adam Paskow, a fictional character and the protagonist of the book, becomes an archivist: through his work at the Aid Society and his English literature classes. As Ringelblum warns Paskow in their very first conversation, the members of Oneg Shabbat face constant danger. If their writings were ever discovered by the guards, it would spell immediate death for them. Miraculously, throughout the war, the Nazis never stumbled upon the archive; the documents were recovered only after the war’s end (“