The diary of a 14-year-old Jewish girl, dubbed the “Polish Anne Frank,” was unveiled by Israel’s Holocaust museum more than 60 years after the teenager vividly described the world crumbling around her as she came of age in a Jewish ghetto. “The rope around us is getting tighter and tighter,” Rutka Laskier wrote in 1943, shortly before she was sent to Auschwitz. “I’m turning into an animal waiting to die.”
Within a few months Rutka was dead and, it seemed, her diary lost. But last year, a Polish friend who had saved the notebook finally came forth, exposing a riveting historical document.
Rutka’s Notebook is a 60-page memoir of daily account of the horrors of the Holocaust in Bedzin, Poland, and a scrapbook detailing the life of a teenager in extraordinary circumstances.
(Source: Fox News)
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9 Responses
Nice timing – the 3 weeks are coming up.
I hope this diary chronicles the mesiras nefesh of Shomrei Shabbos in Europe. The Diary of Anne Frank didn’t seem to do that though far be it from me to judge one of the kedoshim of the Holocaust.
jdspero – What do you mean? That the European churban didn’t only take place during the 3 weeks? Of course I didn’t mean that – I meant that the 3 weeks (and especially Tisha b’Av) is the time that we commemorate such things, and I thought that it was appropriate that this diary came out at this time of year.
Flatbush Bubby – even if this diary does not, there are many memoirs that do talk about the mesiras nefesh of Yidden during the Holocaust. Especially if you read responsa of questions that came up during the Holocaust, you will see vividly how much mesiras nefesh people went through to keep the mitzvos under the most horrible of circumstances.
Living 24/7 as a Jew in Europe during the 30’s and 40’s was meiserus nefesh, who cares what her mitzvoh tally was?
It was enough for the Nazis y’s’v that a Jew was a Jew; the Germans did not inquire as to who had laid tefillin that day, or how one had warmed their kugel on Shabbos morning.
i am waiting with much anticipation to read the diary. when wil it be ready for public reading? stan the man; of course it doesnt matter what her mitzva tally was but it would be nice to have some reading material which our dear kinderlach can read and recognize the great mesiras nefesh the young children had during the time of the terrible nightmare.
Stan the Man,
There WERE a few Countries in Europe where the Jews had it slightly easier, such as Switzerland(neutral Country) and England.
Telegrok is right! The Jews were not ‘selected’ based on whether or not they put on ‘rabeiinu Tam’s Tefillin’. In fact, the Nazis YM used to dig up the ancestry of certain suspicious goyim to see if they had Jewish roots.
There was alot of Mesirus Nefesh during the war. Prisoners in the camps used to secretly light Menorah on Chanukah, they used to save the oil which they had in their soup to eluminate it.
There was a famous story about a woman who’s baby was taken away from her by a nazi. She requested that the baby be returned to her for amoment and then she took out the knife attached to the Nazi’s weapona dn quickly gave her son a bris so he can be returned as a Jew.
re: jdspero Says:
What’s the connection to the 3 weeks? The European churban was 24/7.
The three weeks as well as Tisha B’av have long represented ALL teh suffering of Klala Yisroel in each generation – regardless of which specific date that suffereing took place n.
to: yiddeshemaidel,
I saw some of the entries that were publicized when the news of the diary first came out in the secular media. I DO NOT recommend any yiddeshe kinder reading the diary. Unfortunately, some of the content is very inappropriate.