[Dean's World] Scott Kirwin: Rutka's Holocaust Diary

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Posted by Scott Kirwin:
Rutka's Holocaust Diary
http://www.deanesmay.com/posts/1181082545.shtml


   [1]The Holocaust Museum in Israel has released the diary of a young
   Jewish girl in Poland, Rutka Laskier. The diary had been kept by the
   14 year old from January to April 1943, and had been saved by a
   Christian friend, Stanislawa Sapinska. Sapinksa held the diary for
   over 60 years because she thought it was "too private to share with
   others."

   The excerpts are startling, and a reminder of the horrors faced by
   millions in Nazi occupied Europe.

     Reports of the gassing of Jews, which were not common knowledge in
     the West by then, apparently had filtered into the Bedzin ghetto,
     which was near Auschwitz, Yad Vashem experts said.

     The following day she opened her entry with a heated description of
     her hatred toward her Nazi tormentors. But then, in an effortless
     transition, she described her crush on a boy named Janek and the
     anticipation of a first kiss.

     "I think my womanhood has awoken in me. That means, yesterday when
     I was taking a bath and the water stroked my body, I longed for
     someone's hands to stroke me," she wrote. "I didn't know what it
     was, I have never had such sensations until now."

     Later that day, she shifted back to her harsh reality, describing
     how she watched as a Nazi soldier tore a Jewish baby away from his
     mother and killed him with his bare hands.

   Rutka's voice was silenced soon after her arrival at Auschwitz in
   April 1943. However her words echo across the decades, reminding us of
   how truly horrific and unique the Nazi regime was in our history.

References

   1. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,277875,00.html