Girls' Voices: Jewish Teenage Diarists from Central and Eastern Europe as Witnesses of the Holocaust and Cultural Resisters in Concentration Camps and Ghettos

ABSTRACT:The diaries of the teenage girls Renia Spiegel (Poland), Rutka Laskier (Poland), Sheindi Miller-Ehrenwald (Hungary), Ana Novac (Romania), Éva Heyman (Romania/Hungary), Masha Rolnikaite (Lithuania) and Helga Weiss (Czechoslovakia) share several characteristics. They were all written by diarists who were of Jewish origin; lived in Central and Eastern Europe; and were persecuted, intimidated, and deported to a ghetto and/or concentration camp. Some of the diarists were murdered by the National Socialists. To cope with their traumatic experiences, the girls risked their lives by entrusting their thoughts, fears, and insights to their diaries. In this study, these individual authors are not seen as passive victims, but rather—despite their young age—as eyewitnesses, chroniclers, and cultural resistance fighters. Regardless of the subjectivity and childish or adolescent perspective from which they were written, their works are valued and understood as important historical documents.