In the spring of 1945, a Russian doctor with the liberating Red Army found a diary in the ruins of the crematoria at Auschwitz-Birkenau.  It was not until 2008 (!) that the then Holocaust Center of Northern California was contacted about the diary… “It was a breathtaking artifact – an unknown diary written in the Lodz ghetto… handwritten in Polish, in a school notebook, the diary was in relatively good condition… Considering its age and its provenance – the ruins of the crematoria at Auschwitz – it was remarkably well preserved” (Rywka’s Diary, Preface, p.x).

Rywka’s Diary: The Writings of a Jewish Girl from the Lodz Ghetto, was found in 1945 and published seventy year later.  The diary tells of the emotions, experiences, fears, hopes, longings, dreams, nightmares, innocence-lost, orphaned terror, searing hunger, stalwart faith in G-d, confusion and clarity of fourteen year old Rywka Lipszyc. 

This published version, translated into English, also includes a foreword about life in the Lodz ghetto, as well as an afterword written by the daughter of one of Rywka’s only surviving first cousins (first cousins who were in the Lodz ghetto with her).

This diary takes us on a journey into the heart of one Jewish girl, imprisoned behind the walls of the Lodz ghetto. It is a poignant, painful, beautiful, powerful and significant diary – a window into the life of one out of six million. 

Rywka’s voice speaks for all those who could not.

May their memories be for a blessing; may G-d avenge their blood.