A Researcher in Love: The Case of Bronka Winicka-Klibanski and Mordechai Tenenbaum-Tamaroff from Bialystok Ghetto.

In the paper I plan to analyze the phenomena of the Holocaust Survivor, who is professionally working on compilation and description of events, that he/or she has witnessed during the war time. Bronka Winicka-Klibanski is a great example for such an analysis: during the Second World War she was a Mordechai Tenebaum’s courier (kasharit) living on ‘Aryan side’. Mordechai Tenenbaum-Tamaroff is known as the leader of the Jewish underground movement in the Bialystok Ghetto. He initiated a secret archive in the ghetto that was named after him and his collaborator, Tzvi Mersik. Bronka Winicka helped them to find a safe place for the archive collection outside of the ghetto.

After the war Bronka Winicka-Klibanski worked as an archivist in Yad Vashem, systematizing Mersik-Tenenbaum Archive documents. She wrote few articles relating to the history of Bialystok Ghetto and its documents. Owing to her work and cooperation with Tzvi Shner, the critical edition of Tenenbaum’s work was published in 1984 in Israel. In the same edition Klibanski published for the first time her love-correspondency with Tenenbaum.

The main questions I would like to ask in the paper are: What kind of impact could have the personal relation with Tenenbaum on the life and works of Bronka Winicka-Klibanski? And how should we relate to the works of researcher in love?