Terezin, and a look back at a 1940s diary

[MsAmerica]

How odd - this forum doesn't seem to be visible from the main page, nor in "Other" so I'm not sure how anyone would know it exists.

I thought I'd share this here, if anyone is interested. It's by a Theresienstadt survivor, looking at the diary from her childhood and assessing everything as an adult. But the most touching part for me is the letter from someone else at the end.

My Terezin Diary
What is most striking to me today about the diary I kept in the camp, seventy-five years ago, is what I left out.
By Zuzana Justman

I regret that I will never be able to describe what I experienced and what I saw. I ask one thing of you: do believe that everything you will hear is true. Nothing that you will hear can compare with what I knew about and witnessed...
Tomorrow I will leave, separately from the rest of my family. After tomorrow you will never hear from me again. I will vanish into the endless nothingness to join those who had to pay for what they knew and witnessed, while for many years the whole world watched with folded arms. We are at war, we are the enemies, and we have to know how to die like soldiers. In the next forty-eight hours, my fate will be sealed, and my wife Gerta’s as well. All I ask of you is to take care of our father’s grave and, if you should find us, to bury us next to him.

www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/09/16/my-terezin-diary?verso=true

Thank you so much for posting this.

My late father had a lovely friend who escaped Prague with his parents and siblings just in time. They ended up in the west of Ireland.

All I ask of you is to take care of our father’s grave and, if you should find us, to bury us next to him. Even though they knew they would be murdered and that this was the fate of millions, they had no idea of the total annihilation that was planned for them.

And never forget that what you will hear cannot be compared to the reality of what people had to live through.

^
Yitgadal v’yitkadash sh’mei raba^

The voice of civilised people with civilised expectations living through unspeakable horror under the rule of people who had given themselves over to the service of evil.

I visited the Washington DC Holocaust Museum and was struck (not the right word - it had a profound effect on me) by the display children's art from Terezin. There were little collages and pictures showing gardens, watering cans and flowers, little houses with paths to the front doors, the sun setting behind mountains, a swan in a pond, a little bouquet tied with a ribbon.