Rutka's Notebook: A Voice from the Holocaust

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In 1943, while writing the diary, Laskier shared it with Stanisława Sapińska (21 years old, at that time), whom she had befriended after Laskier's family moved into a home owned by Sapińska's Roman Catholic family, which had been confiscated by the Nazis so that it could be included in the ghetto. [12] Etty Hillesum– wrote a diary in Amsterdam and Camp Westerbork ( Etty Hillesum and the Flow of Presence: A Voegelinian Analysis) When the Przemyśl ghetto was established in July 1942, Renia and her sister were forced to move there along with her grandparents. After a few weeks, Renia’s boyfriend, Zygmunt Schwarzer, who had a work pass, smuggled the sisters out of the ghetto and hid them and his own parents in the attic of his uncle's house. Their hiding place was eventually exposed by an informer, and Renia along with Zygmunt’s parents were executed in the street. Discovery of Laskier's diary[edit] In 1943, while writing the diary, Laskier shared it with Stanisława Sapińska (21 years old, at that time), whom she had befriended after Laskier's family moved into a home owned by Sapińska's Roman Catholic family, which had been confiscated by the Nazis so that it could be included in the ghetto.

The Secret Diary Of The Holocaust (WW2 Documentary) | History Documentary". Reel Truth History . Retrieved 26 January 2022. Rutka's father was the only member of the family who survived the Holocaust. Following World War II, he emigrated to Israel, where he remarried and had another daughter, Zahava Scherz. He died in 1986. [10] According to Zahava Scherz, interviewed in the BBC documentary The Secret Diary of the Holocaust (broadcast in January 2009), [11] he never told Scherz about Rutka until she discovered a photo album when she herself was 14, which contained a picture of Rutka with her younger brother. Scherz asked her father who they were, and he answered her truthfully, but never spoke of it again. She went on to explain that she only learned of the existence of Rutka's diary in 2006, and she expressed how much it has meant to her to be able to get to know her half-sister through Rutka’s words. [12] Diary [ edit ]

Apart from these things, I was thankful for the reminder of what a horrible atrocity happened. We must educate ourselves and never forget, so history doesn’t repeat itself. As humans, we must understand our frailty, the potential pros and cons to our emotions, motifs, and the power we can hold over one another. It is also important to recognize the roles that diversity and religion play in society, discrimination, hate, and genuine kindness. We cannot lump some all of one party together as at fault, we can’t group all people together because they belong to the same race, religion, social status, etc. And we cannot blame those alive now for what they’re ancestors did.

She was living in a new world, but it was the world of Nazi destruction. Her family had already been dislocated once and was threatened with imminent relocation again to an enclosed ghetto. Above that loomed the ever-present threat of Auschwitz. Occasionally, Rutka wrote directly about the occupation and of her fear of the Germans, but mostly she confined her attention to personal matters. Perhaps she was trying to make sense of her relationships at a time when they could change or disappear in a moment. Maybe she was simply focusing on things that were at least somewhat under her control. In either case, the subtext of her diary reveals that she was aware of her broader circumstances and their effects on her life.Rutka’s diary ends abruptly, and she gives no hint that she suspects her life will soon end. In fact, Rutka’s last entry complains of boredom. A few days later, she is moved with her family to a ghetto and later to Auschwitz. News of the concentration camps, including Auschwitz, and the brutal killings of Jews, filtered through to her. The few passages about the Nazi occupation are all the more disturbing in contrast with Rutka’s “normal” life. She writes, “Something has broken inside me. When I pass by a German, everything shrinks in me.” In another entry she derides herself for calling on God. “If God existed,” she writes, “He would have certainly not permitted that human beings be thrown alive into furnaces, and the heads of little toddlers be smashed with butts of guns.”

The rope around is getting tighter and tighter, Rutka wrote in 1943, shortly before her deportation. ”I’m turning into an animal waiting to die.” News of the concentration camps, and the brutal killings of Jews, filtered through to her. Writing on February 5 1943, she said: "I simply can't believe that one day I will be allowed to leave this house without the yellow star. Or even that this war will end one day. If this happens I will probably lose my mind from joy.Philip’s family concealed his letters in their Amsterdam house, where they were discovered more than 50 years later when the house was being demolished. 86 letters, including postcards and a telegram were found hidden in the ceiling of the third floor bathroom. The hidden letters eventually came into the possession of Philip’s cousin, in 1999, who published them as a book called Hidden Letters. Rywka Lipszyc Before Petr was deported to the camp, he kept a diary about his life. It was first published by his sister Eva as Diary of My Brother. The English translation was published in 2007 as “ The Diary of Petr Ginz 1941–1942.” Miriam Wattenberg (Mary Berg) Rutka Laskier’s notebook, including an introduction by a family member, contains no more than than one thousand words. The comparison with Anne Frank seemed to me slightly unfair to Anne Frank. Besides the fact that Anne Frank has become a cliché—sometimes an unpleasant cliché: I’m not sure what to think about Anne Frank, the Musical, which will open in Spain in the near future—Anne’s diary is not only powerful from a historical point of view, but also from a literary point of view.

Rutka Laskier was born Rut Laskier on 12 June 1929 in Kraków, Poland, the eldest of two children. Her mother was a housewife, whilst her father Jakub Laskier, worked as a bank officer. Rutka Laskier was born in Kraków [1] to Dwojra Hampel, daughter of Abram Chil Hampel, and Jakub Laskier, who worked as a bank officer. [2] [3] Her family was well off. Her grandfather served as co-owner of Laskier-Kleinberg & Co, a milling company that owned and operated a grist mill. [4] As the Nazis tightened their grip on Poland, Rutka asked her non-Jewish neighbor, Stanislava Shapinska, where she should hide the diary if she had to leave home suddenly. They agreed she should leave it hidden beneath some stairs in Rutka's house. Rutka's Notebook is one of the many diaries & journals written during a dark period in history, the Holocaust, and rediscovered many years later thanks to a former friend coming forth with the notebook. Her book covers the 4 month period she spent in the ghettos of Bedzin before her deportation to Auschwitz, which she did not survive. But her writing lends another voice that has awoken from the genocide, cementing her legacy in both literature and Jewish culture. Rutka has been dubbed as the "Polish Anne Frank", which I can see the similarities when reading her journal. She was one of the millions of children who had to learn to grow up fast as her freedoms were stripped and forced into captivity by the Nazis. She details both her budding womanhood: her physical and emotional changes, confusion on love; while noting her fears and hatred going on outside. She mentions the violence and sadism the Nazis acted on the civilians, her poor working conditions in the shops, her questioning of God's existence during the crisis and her yearn to be freed from the terror. And I really did enjoy the diary, as much as you can enjoy something that breaks your heart. It doesn't matter how many times I read about it, I still cannot wrap my brain around the Holocaust. Rutka's story is, in some senses, harder to read than Anne's. While Anne had to stay hidden from the Nazi's, Rutka had to interact with them first hand, and her diary tells of some incredibly disturbing incidents as her family is forced to move to a ghetto and go through "selections" where you don't know if you will end up going home or being sent to a concentration camp.

Historical records matching Rutka Laskier

Hélène Berr started writing at the age of 21. She wrote about her everyday life in Paris, her studies, her friends, and her growing affection for one young man. Gradually, she began to write about the Nazi occupation and the growing restrictions imposed by the occupiers. Because the Final Solution was never made explicit to the public, Berr was initially unaware of the gas chambers and the mass killings that were taking place. She wondered naively why women and especially children were included in the deportations to the camps. Bella Gutterman, editor-in-chief of Yad Vashem Publications, says Rutka's diary offers much more than a history book can offer. Rutka (Ruth) Laskier (1929–1943) was a Jewish teenager from Poland who is best known for her 1943 diary chronicling three months of her life during the Holocaust. Rutka’s story has many parallels with that of Anne Frank. Both were fourteen years old when they died, and both were survived by only their fathers. Both diaries document their everyday lives, their friendships, their first loves, their sexual awakening, and the horrors of the Nazi occupation.