Just a few months later, Rutka was dead and, it seemed, her diary lost. But in 2006, a Polish friend who had saved the notebook finally came forward, exposing a riveting historical document. With help from Sapińska's nephew, he obtained a photocopy of the diary and was instrumental in the publishing of its Polish-language edition. Its publication by Yad Vashem Publications was commemorated with a ceremony in Jerusalem by Yad Vashem (the Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Authority), Israel's Holocaust museum, on 4 June 2007, in which Zahava Scherz took part. At this ceremony, Sapińska also donated the original diary to Yad Vashem. [16]

Diaries like Ruska's take on added significance as Holocaust survivors are aging. One day, there will be no survivors left to give first-person accounts of life during the Holocaust. 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.[citation needed] According to Zahava Scherz, interviewed in the BBC documentary "The Secret Diary of the Holocaust" (broadcast in January 2009),[4] 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. Zahava explains that she asked her father who they were and he answered her truthfully, but never spoke further about it. Zahava went on to explain that she learnt of the existence of Rutka's diary in 2006, and she expressed how much it has meant to her finally to be able to get to know her half-sister, to whom she felt a closeness after reading her diary. From to time to time, a Dutch publisher will ask me to write a preface or an afterword to a book he plans to publish. I have written prefaces for authors as different as Machiavelli, Stendhal and Boris Vian.

Broadcasts

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. But Rutka would write again. Her last entry was dated April 24, 1943. ”I’m very bored,” she wrote. “The entire day I’m walking around the room. I have nothing to do.” Last November I received a letter from a publisher, asking if I was interested in writing a preface to Rutka Laskier’s diary. I had no clue who exactly Rutka Laskier was, but since I knew the translator of the diary personally, I didn’t want to say no right away. Bella Gutterman, editor-in-chief of Yad Vashem Publications, says Rutka's diary offers much more than a history book can offer.

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.The diary of Rutka Laskier, a 14-year-old Jewish girl writing in 1943 just before her deportation to Auschwitz, was released by Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust Museum, in cooperation with Rutka’s family. More than 60 years later, her words provide a rare and authentic perspective of history and tragedy, offering both a daily account of life in the Polish ghetto of Bedzin and the memoir of a teenager trapped in the the Holocaust. Rut "Rutka" Laskier (12 June 1929 – December 1943) was a Jewish Polish diarist who is best known for her 1943 diary chronicling the three months of her life during the Holocaust in Poland. She was murdered at Auschwitz concentration camp in 1943 at the age of fourteen. Her manuscript, authenticated by Holocaust scholars and survivors, was published in the Polish language in early 2006. English and Hebrew translations were released the following year. It has been compared to the diary of Anne Frank. Rutka Laskier kept a diary for a little more than three months at the beginning of 1943. At the time, she was 14 years old. Her hometown, Bedzin, had already been occupied by the Germans for over three years when she began her writing. Over the course of that time, the Jews of Bedzin had been subjected to many harsh regulations. They had been required to move into restricted housing and much of their property was confiscated. They were forced to wear the “Jewish star” and were subjected to forced labor. All of these depredations were carried out under the constant threat of violence and murder.

She knew how to describe things. She was very gifted in writing, and the story about her everyday life, such banal things get a special impact when you know she was living under the German rule with the danger. Every day people were missing," Gutterman says. "This is something. You feel like she was talking to you."I also greatly appreciated the extra content within the book. There are photographs, footnotes to help, and there are pieces by Rutka's half-sister, Zahava Laskier. I have a feeling that I am writing for the last time. There is an Aktion [a Nazi arrest operation] in town. I'm not allowed to go out and I'm going crazy, imprisoned in my own house. For a few days, something's in the air. The town is breathlessly waiting in anticipation, and this anticipation is the worst of all. I wish it would end already! This torment; this is hell. Etty Hillesum– wrote a diary in Amsterdam and Camp Westerbork ( Etty Hillesum and the Flow of Presence: A Voegelinian Analysis) Tanya was the youngest of five children in the Savicheva family. She had two sisters, Nina and Zhenya, and two brothers, Mikhail and Leka. The family was going to spend the summer of 1941 in the countryside but the Axis invasion of the Soviet Union ruined their plans. Only Mikhial left earlier to join the partisans while the rest of family stayed in Leningrad. They all worked hard to support the army. Her mother sewed uniforms, Leka worked as a plane operator at the Admiralty Plant, Zhenya worked at the munitions factory, Nina worked at the construction of city defenses, and Uncle Vasya and Uncle Lesha served in the anti-aircraft defense. Tanya, then 11 years old, dug trenches and put out firebombs.