The Secret Holocaust Diary Of Renia Spiegel Was Published After 70 Years Inside A Vault
Bellak Family ArchiveRenia Spiegel chronicled the steady disappearance of Jewish families around her, bombing raids, and falling in love for the first time — before she herself was murdered by the Nazis.
Anne Frank’s diary may very well be the most famous — and perhaps one of the most gut-wrenching — first-hand accounts of the Jewish Holocaust. But another secret diary filled with pages retelling the atrocious Nazi-era genocide was revealed this year, and now it’s available for the public to read.
Like Frank, Renia Spiegel was a teenager trying to escape death at the hands of Nazis, and she kept a meticulous journal during that precarious time. She was only 18 when the Nazis found her hiding in an attic in 1942 and murdered her.
Now, after 70 years being safeguarded in a New York bank vault, her story is finally available to read under the title Renia’s Diary: A Young Girl’s Life in the Shadow of the Holocaust.
It was published in September after a wild and fortuitous journey. Renia’s boyfriend obtained her diary after her death, and gave it to a friend for safe keeping before he was taken to the Auschwitz concentration camp. Surviving to the end of World War II, he moved to the United States, where he handed the diary over to Renia’s mother and sister.
They couldn’t bear to read it, but the sister’s daughter had it translated in 2012.
An excerpt from the Renia’s June 7, 1942 entry reveals the excruciating horrors she faced during the war:
“Wherever I look, there is bloodshed. Such terrible pogroms. There is killing, murdering. God Almighty, for the umpteenth time I humble myself in front of you, help us, save us! Lord God, let us live, I beg You, I want to live! I’ve experienced so little of life. I don’t want to die. I’m scared of death. It’s all so stupid, so petty, so unimportant, so small. Today I’m worried about being ugly; tomorrow I might stop thinking forever.”
While the astonishing news of the brave teenage girl and her intimate diary is “an extraordinary testament to both the horrors of war, and to the life that can exist even in the darkest times,” her sister still hasn’t read the diary in full.
“I have only read some of it because I used to cry all the time,” Elizabeth told the BBC. It’s surely one of the most heart-wrenching pieces of history news this year.
