Abraham Lewin (1893–1943)

Abraham Lewin was born to an Orthodox Jewish family in Warsaw, Poland. His father Shabtai was a scholar and a rabbi. As a child, Abraham attended the traditional Jewish school, from which he graduated to a yeshiva. He lost his father early, which forced him to go to work as a youth to support his mother and three sisters. In 1916, he got a job as a teacher of Hebrew and Judaic studies at the Jehudia gymnasium, a private Jewish secondary school for girls in Warsaw. There his fellow teachers included his future wife, Luba Hotner, and Emanuel Ringelblum, historian and social worker. In the years following World War I, Lewin was an active member of pioneering Zionist organizations. During World War II he stayed in Warsaw and continued to lecture and teach Jewish history and literature to both adult and youth groups. He was also active in the Jewish Self-Help Organization and a leader of the underground archive entitled Oneg Shabbat, founded by Ringelblum. This was a project for documenting and archiving the experience of life inside the Warsaw Ghetto. His book A Cup of Tears: A Diary of the Warsaw Ghetto (published 1988), covered the period from March 26, 1942 to January 16, 1943. The text was written in two parts, the first in Yiddish and the second in Hebrew, drawing on Lewin's command of both languages. It is presumed that Lewin died shortly after the final diary entry, but the exact date is unknown. Abraham, Luba, and their daughter Ora were all deported to the Treblinka death camp, where they perished. Two of the hidden deposits of Oneg Shabbat archives, including Lewin's diary, were found hidden in a milk can after the war and published in English for the first time in 1990, with an introduction by Antony Polonsky.