Why did I decide to start my diary today? Has something important happened? Have I discovered that my friends are keeping diaries of their own? No! I just want a friend. I want somebody I can talk to about my everyday worries and joys. Somebody who will feel what I feel, believe what I say and never reveal my secrets. No human could ever be that kind of friend and that's why I have decided to look for a confidant in the form of a diary.
Renia is a young girl who dreams of becoming a poet. But Renia is Jewish, she lives in Poland and the year is 1939. When Russia and Germany invade her country, Renia's world shatters. Separated from her mother, her life takes on a new urgency as she flees Przemysl to escape night bombing raids, observes the disappearances of other Jewish families and, finally, witnesses the creation of the ghetto.
But alongside the terror of war, there is also great beauty, as she begins to find her voice as a writer and falls in love for the first time. She and the boy she falls in love with, Zygmunt, share their first kiss a few hours before the Nazis reach her hometown. And it is Zygmunt who writes the final, heartbreaking entry in Renia’s diary.
Recently rediscovered after seventy years, Renia’s Diary is already being described as a classic of Holocaust literature. Written with a clarity and skill that is reminiscent of Anne Frank, Renia's Diary also includes a prologue and epilogue by Renia's sister Elizabeth, as well as an introduction by Deborah E. Lipstadt, author of Denial. It is an extraordinary testament to both the horrors of war, and to the life that can exist even in the darkest times.
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Reviewing a book such as this is very difficult and so I am not going to try. In fact, on my Goodreads page I have not given it a star rating.
Now, I am in no way criticising those who have, but personally I do not think it appropriate to do so. My reasoning is that this was never written with the intention of publication so, I ask myself how can I possibly judge it as such?
It was not written to be read by others; nor to be thought provoking. It was the private thoughts of a young woman growing up in occupied Poland during the Second World War. Consequently, the bulk of the diary is full of the kinds of entries that concern a young woman. There is much about her friends, who likes which boys and her school work. I kept a diary myself when I was in my teens and my life concerns were similar
However, the overwhelming difference is that she was growing up in Poland, separated from her parents because of the war. Her diary entries begin on 1st January 1939 and stop very abruptly on 25 July 1942. Two days later there is an entry made by Renia's boyfriend, Zygmunt. He explains that Renia has been forced into hiding.
Renia's hiding place is discovered just a few days later and she is brutally murdered by the Nazi's. A young woman who should have had her whole life ahead of her, who had the potential to achieve so much, is slaughtered for no offence other than being a Jew.
I know we are all familiar with the Nazi attempt to annihilate the Jewish population, as well as many others during the Holocaust, but it is still heart-breaking. Through this diary we, the readers, are able to walk alongside this young woman through the words in her diary and feel her loss acutely. May her memory be for blessing.
ISBN: 978 1529105063
Publisher: Ebury Press
Format: Hardcover, paperback, audio and e-book.
No. of pages: 464 in paperback
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