I’m Still Here: Real Diaries of Young People Who Lived During the Holocaust

November 27, 2022

I’m Still Here: Real Diaries of Young People Who Lived During the Holocaust

The title of this post, I’m Still Here: Real Diaries of Young People Who Lived During the Holocaust, is from a 2005 documentary produced by MTV (yes, MTV). It starred several famous actors reading excerpts from diaries of young people who lived during the Holocaust—most murdered.

I’ve mentioned the full-length movies in this post. I also picked two excerpts from two diarists mentioned in the documentary.

The first one is from the diary of Dawid Rubinowicz., dated 10 April 1942. The reason why I picked that day is because it is my birthday. Dawid Rubinowicz was born on 27 July 1927 in Krajno, Poland, and murdered in September 1942, age 15, at the Treblinka Extermination Camp. He was a Polish Jewish boy. His diary was found and published after the end of World War II.

10 April 1942
“They’ve taken away a man and a woman from across the road, and two children are left behind. Again it’s rumoured that the father of these children was shot two days ago in the evening. …The gendarmes were in Slupia and arrested three Jews. They finished them off in Bieliny (they were certainly shot). Already a lot of Jewish blood has flowed into this Bieliny a whole Jewish cemetery has already grown up there. When will this terrible bloodshed finally end? If it goes on much longer then people will drop like flies out of sheer horror. A peasant from Krajno came to tell us our former neighbour’s daughter had been shot because she’d gone out after seven o’clock. I can scarcely believe it, but everything’s possible. A girl as pretty as a picture—if she could be shot, then the end of the world will be here soon.”

He was 14 years old when he wrote this. What strikes me are his words when he talks about gendarmes. Let that sink in for a second, and think of it what you like. I know what it means, but if I said, I know I will be getting emails from certain organizations threatening me with legal action because the truth is not there to be told.

The second excerpt is from the diary of Ilya Gerber. It is dated 27 November 1942, 80 years ago today. He was 18 at the time. The quote is about life in the Lithuanian Kovno ghetto. The Nazis murdered Ilya on 28 April 1945—on the verge of liberation. Gerber was fatally shot by Nazis, when marching forcibly from Dachau to Wolfsratshausen, Germany. He was not yet 21 years old.

27 November 1942
“I haven’t written since the nineteenth because there was no very important Jewish news, except that brigades have lately been smuggling in [food] not in their pockets, and not in little packages, but in fact in whole bundles… Mostly, when the ghetto commandant stands by the gate, the bundles or packages are confiscated and you sometimes feel his whip. But if he is not there it costs you whatever it takes to grease the palm of the partisan [Lithuanian auxiliary serving the Germans] or the policeman and you pass through undisturbed.”

Similar to Dawid Rubinowicz’s observation, Ilya referred to partisans. What that meant is mentioned in the quote also. Ilya may have added the quote or inserted it later to put it in context for readers. Also, if you read between the lines—you will recognize the implication of this.