War Diaries (May 12) (nonfiction)
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Diaries
Reina Spiegel: May 12, 1942
Some kind of fever has taken over the city. The specter of the ghetto has returned. I’m glad I’m crying now, when nobody can see me. I shouted today, “Oh, God, I want the moment to come already when they take me away!”
No, I don’t want that! Lord, forgive me. But my soul was so embittered that I felt like maybe that would be for the best. Mamma writes us that children are being taken away into forced labor. She told me to pack. She wants to be with us and at the same time she wants to send Daddy an official letter asking for divorce.
They will never patch it up. Mamma will remarry and I will never, ever again come to the door of my parents’ home. Her husband will be a stranger. And Daddy wrote to me that he was not sure if he would ever see me again! Daddy, you are an unlucky Jew, just like me, locked away in the ghetto. Holy God, can you save me? Can you save them? All of them. Oh, please, work a miracle!
Life is so miserable. But my heart still fills with sorrow, when I think...will I die? What awaits us in the future? Oh, God Almighty! So many times, I’ve asked you and you’ve listened to me—please bring an end to our misery. I feel better now; it’s so good to have a cry. People say now food’s the most important thing. I had a good, filling dinner—and I feel so terrible. I’m not hungry, but I’m hungry for somebody’s caring protection.
And Zygus? Yes, that might be why I don’t want to say goodbye to life. Mamma, don’t hold it against me. You’re going to have your own life now. You might even have more children. I didn’t really count on us having a home together in the future; I just had this timid, naive dream. I’m not really disappointed, I just looked around at the world and it scared me with its emptiness.
And Mamma, so dear, will be with some man who is a stranger to me. I’m not crying anymore. The man I will be with will be a stranger to her. Life brings people together and then separates them.
Renia Spiegel began her diary in January 1939 at the age of 15.
- Excerpts from the Diaries of Renia Spiegel @ Smithsonian Magazine
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External links
- Excerpts from the Diaries of Renia Spiegel @ Smithsonian Magazine