“September 2, 1942, I had a visitor today. A guest enters my office – torn and bedraggled, weak and exhausted, and there is a strange wild look in his eyes. I can only record dryly what he has told me but I cannot speak – words fail me. All I want to do is cry, and cry, and cry, until there are no more tears. ‘Who will turn my head to water and my eyes to a source of tears, and I will weep all day and all night for the slain of the daughter of my people… [Yirmiyahu]’
This description was recorded by Dr. Hillel Seidman, Chief Archivist of the Warsaw Kehilla, in his Warsaw Ghetto diary. In another diary entry, Dr. Seidman described once being included in a group of Jews slated for deportation:
“And so we sat – squashed, hungry, and completely cowed – all of us had surrendered to total despondency and apathy. Suddenly, my elderly, white-bearded neighbor with his tallis and tefillin straightened up and began to speak; at first quietly, but soon with growing strength.
‘Yidden! Zorgts eich nisht! Fall nisht arein in ah marah shechorah! Farlihr zich nisht in atzvus, chalilah! – Jews, do not worry! Do not fall prey to depression or sadness. Can’t you see we are marching towards Mashiach? Can’t you see that? If only I had a glass of mashkeh, I would drink a lechaim, here and now! Lechaim Yidden! Nor nisht kein yiush! – Do not get depressed!’”
What makes this diary so historically significant is that it is not just the private memoir of Dr. Seidman. Rather, it is a reflection of the suffering of Klal Yisrael at that time. As a historian with tremendous devotion to the larger Jewish community, Dr. Seidman focused little on his personal distress but chose to chronicle the greater Jewish experience. Dr. Seidman buried his work, hoping it would be retrieved in the future. Miraculously, both, Dr. Seidman and his diary survived, and the diary became a pivotal account of what had occurred.
Another diary of substantial importance is that of Chaim Yitzchok Wolgelernter. Chaim Yitzchok lived in Działoszyce, Poland, and wrote his diary while hiding in a bunker. (To learn more, read the newly released book, The Unfinished Diary – A Chronicle of Tears, published by Israel Bookshop.) Though this diary is more personal in nature, there is power in Chaim Yitzchok’s words.
In September of 1942, the Nazis began liquidating the Działoszyce Ghetto and Chaim Yitzchok’s three-year-old daughter, Alte Sara Leah, was taken on the first transport and murdered in Belzec. Brokenhearted, Chaim Yitzchok expressed his emotions by writing an acrostic poem in Lashon HaKodesh to eulogize his daughter using the letters of her name:
“The heartless killers of our people
Tore my heart to pieces, slashed my soul,
When they snatched my cherished daughter in the dawn of her youth,
My world turned dark, my soul refuses to be consoled.
The sun of my fortune that set before its time,
My hoped-for firstborn child – where are you?
Are you still among the living???
My heart is searching in the east; my spirit roaming the world.
Alte’le, my beloved daughter, I sought you but could not find you.
Oh, how I yearn for you – will I merit seeing you again?”
Inmate uniform from Bergen Belsen Concentration Camp (Courtesy of the Schmidt Family)
