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Dear Diary, I Don't Want to Die
One-and-a-half million Jewish children were murdered in the Holocaust, the
majority of them with no one to perpetuate their memory or even their names.
This ceremony highlights excerpts from the diaries of three Jewish children, as
well as poems and memoirs.In addition, it includes a selection of prayers that
are appropriate for a religous ceremony.
The ceremony is intended for grades 10-12. Approximate length is 20 minutes.
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Reading Instructions:
We recommend choosing a narrator, preferably a teacher, and seven readers, who may be students. The narrator will read all unframed texts, whereas four readers are each assigned the framed diary excerpts from one of the four children. The poems "A Dream", and "Each of Us Has a Name" are assigned respectively.
Solemn background music is appropriate.
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For Jewish students, you may wish to add Hebrew prayers: click here.
Ceremony
Narrator:
Today we mark Yom Hashoah - the Holocaust Martyrs' and
Heroes' Remembrance Day. Between 1939 and 1945, six million Jews were
murdered by the Nazis and their collaborators. Of these, one-and-a-half-million
were children and teenagers. Whole families were destroyed during this period,
and thus the names and identities of many Jewish children still remain unknown.
A few of them kept diaries, and some of them were discovered at a later
date. Today we
will read from some of those diaries.
Most of these children enjoyed a relatively normal, worry-free childhood before the Second World War. Whether from Poland, Germany, Hungary or Lithuania, they were born into Jewish communities that had existed in Europe for thousands of years.
Eva Heyman was born and lived in Nagyvarad, Hungary. Her diary begins with a description of her thirteenth birthday, where she lists the presents she received:
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Reader 1
February 13, 1944
I've turned thirteen, I was born on Friday the thirteenth. [..] From Grandpa, [I received] phonograph records of the kind I like. My grandfather bought them so that I should learn French lyrics, which will make ?gi [mother] happy, because she isn't happy about my school record cards except when I get a good mark in French [..] I do a lot of athletics, swimming, skating, bicycle riding and exercise. [..] I've written enough today. You're probably tired, dear diary.[1]
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Narrator:
Dawid Sierakowiak was born in Lodz, Poland. He began keeping a diary at age fifteen, while attending a Jewish summer camp in southern Poland. It is obvious from the diary that he greatly enjoyed his time there, especially hiking. His love of nature is reflected in his writing:
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Reader 2
July 4, 1939
We went on a hike rich with splendid thrills. After breakfast, we set out in the direction of Pieniny [..] I had put on thick winter boots, which really came in handy. We climb easily. Suddenly we find ourselves on a high spot, and when we look down to one side, we stop in surprise. The mountain falls in a sheer cliff down a 100-meter precipice, threatening the viewer. [..] Below flows the Dunajec, winding in thousands of curves, with its bare, rocky banks glittering here and there.[2]
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Reader 5
A Dream
By Avraham Koplowicz
When I grow up and reach the age of 20,
I'll set out to see the enchanting world.
I'll take a seat in a bird with a motor;
I'll rise and soar high into space.
I'll fly, sail, hover
Over the lovely faraway world.
I'll soar over rivers and ocean
Skyward shall I ascend and blossom,
A cloud my sister, the wind my brother.
[…] [3]
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Design Suggestion:
You may insert a song in your native language, relating to themes of childhood - innocence, child's play, etc.
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The Germans Have Come!
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Design Suggestion:
As the following section deals with the theme of impending danger, you may insert more dramatic background music.
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Narrator:
Although the fate of Jews differed greatly under Nazi domination, the unfolding of events followed similar lines for our young diary-keepers. The German occupation severely disrupted the children's lives.
Eva Heyman was still only thirteen when the Germans invaded her hometown. Despite her tender age, she had a sense of the unfolding danger:
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Reader 1
March 19, 1944
Dear diary, you're the luckiest one in the world, because you cannot feel, you cannot know what a terrible thing has happened to us. The Germans have come![4]
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Narrator:
Dawid Sierakowiak describes the day German forces entered Lodz:
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Reader 3
September 8, 1939
Lodz is occupied! The beginning of the day was calm, too calm. In the afternoon I sat in the park and draw a sketch of a girlfriend. Then all of a sudden the terrifying news: Lodz has been surrendered! German patrols on Piotrkowska
Street. Fear, surprise [..] Meanwhile, all conversation stops; the streets grow deserted; faces and hearts are covered with gloom, cold severity and hostility.[5]
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Narrator:
Nazi persecution of Jews was swift and brutal. For the children, school was disrupted and often halted altogether, and many Jewish pupils were forced to support their families by working or smuggling.
Hannah Hershkowitz recalls her first day of school:
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Reader 4
I was six years old. It was the first day of school in September, 1941. [..] Marisha, my best friend, invited me to come with her to school. We met in the morning and walked together with a lot of other children. We reached the big high gates. The watchman of the school was standing by the gate. [..] Marisha
went through the gate, and I followed her, as the watchmen greeted her.
"Where are you going?"
he asked me.
"To school, to the first grade", I said proudly, and continued walking. The watchman blocked my way. "No, not you."
"But I am six already" - I really am!
"You are a Jew", he said, "Jews have no right to learn. No Jews in our school. Go home!" [..] Marisha, with the other children, ran into the building.
[..] I did not cry. I thought: I'm Jewish. There is no place for me. I stood
there until no one stood in front of the school. Only me. The new school year
had begun. But not for me.[6]
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Narrator:
Hannah had been left out. She was no longer a part of society, and she began seeing herself as an outsider. For Jewish children, merely going to school became a special privilege.
Dawid Sierakowiak writes:
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Reader 3
Tomorrow is the first day of school. Who knows how our dear school has been? My friends are going there tomorrow to find out what's cooking, while I have to stay at home. I have to! My parents say that they are not going to lose me yet. Oh, my dear school! [..] Damn the times when I complained about getting up in the morning and about tests. If only I could have them back!
[7]
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Narrator:
Then:
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Reader 3
I am finally going to school tomorrow. Coeducational classes! There are great girls there, they say. Only let our education be normal.
[8]
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Reader 6
Ani Maamin- I believe
O, I believe,
With a perfect faith,
That the Messiah will come,
With a perfect faith,
That the Messiah will come,
And even though he may tarry,
Whatever may be, I do believe.
Whatever may be, I’ll await him
Every day until he arrives.
אני מאמין באמונה שלימה בביאת המשיח
ואף על פי שיתמהמה עם כל זה אחכה לו בכל יום שיבוא
(From the thirteen principles of Faith of Maimonides, the Rambam.) |
Narrator:
Feiga Zelicka was one of the top Beit Yakov (women's seminary) teachers in the Lodz ghetto. She continued to teach classes on Torah and Judaism from her small home in the ghetto. Her student, Sara, remembers:
Reader 6
How beautiful were the chapters of Tehillim-Psalms, such as “How long will you hide your face from me?” …How well they expressed our feelings! And the episode of the exodus from Egypt... the readiness for redemption had a lot in common with our times. Out teacher connected us with the past so that we would understand the present better and be able to believe in the future...”[9] |
Narrator:
For the Nazis, kicking Jews out of school wasn't enough. Jews were forced out of their homes, and had to leave most of their belongings behind as they entered ghettos.
Eva realizes the new harsh reality of the ghetto:
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Reader 1
May 10, 1944
Dear diary, we're here five days, but, word of honor, it seems like five years. [..] The most awful thing of all is that the punishment for everything is death. There is no difference between things; no standing in the corner, no spankings, no taking away food, no writing down the declension of irregular verbs one hundred times the way it used to be in school. Not at all: the lightest and heaviest punishment - death.[10]
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Reader 7
Psalms, Chapter 23
The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.
He makes me lie down in green pastures,
He leads me beside the still waters.
He revives my spirit;
He guides me in paths of righteousness for His names sake.
Though I walk in the valley of the shadow of death,
I fear no harm; for you are with me.
Your rod and your staff comfort me.
You prepare a table before me in the presence of my foes.
You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.
Surely goodness and kindness shall follow me all the days of my life.
And I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.
מזמור לדוד ה' רועי לא אחסר: בנאות דשא ירביצני
על מי מנוחות ינהלני: נפשי ישובב ינחני במעגלי צדק
למען שמו : גם כי אלך בגיא צלמות לא אירא רע כי
אתה עמדי שבטך ומשענתך המה ינחמוני: תערוך לפני
שולחן נגד צוררי דשנת בשמן ראשי כוסי רויה: אך
טוב וחסד ירדפוני כל ימי חיי ושבתי בבית ה' לאורך
ימים. |
Narrator:
Food in the ghettos was strictly controlled by the Nazis. The rations they allowed per person were inhuman - in Poland, less than
ten percent of the minimum daily requirement. Many Jews died of disease, starvation and exhaustion, a condition that was grimly referred to as "Ghetto Disease".
Dawid Sierakowiak writes:
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Reader 3
May 24, 1941
I'm damnably hungry because there isn't even a trace left of the small loaf of bread that was supposed to feed me through Tuesday. I console myself that I'm not the only one in such a dire situation. When I receive my ration of bread, I can hardly control myself and sometimes suffer so much from exhaustion that I have to eat whatever food I have, and then my small loaf of bread disappears before the next ration is issued, and my torture grows. But what can I do? There's no help. Our grave will apparently be here.
[11]
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Narrator:
Hunger
Leo Egan
It was all figured out by a German scientist:
If they're starving, they won't have the strength to resist.
They won't think of planning revolts or living underground,
But only of how a piece of bread might be found.
They won't rebel in any way,
When they're counting the potatoes in the soup today.
The gnawing hunger was always on my mind,
To anything else I soon became blind. [..]
I realized no matter how small the ration,
They couldn't rob my imagination.[12] |
Because of deportations to the Nazi extermination camps and the many deaths within the ghetto, entire families were torn apart. In 1942, Dawid Sierakowiak's mother was taken to a hospital, which Dawid knew meant inevitable deportation to the camps. He writes:
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Reader 3
"My most sacred, beloved, worn-out, blessed, cherished Mother has fallen victim to the bloodthirsty German Nazi beast!!! [13] [..]
They say that Mom is unrecognizable, which makes her slender chances even less. At times such shudders and heart palpitations come over me that it seems to I'm going insane or delirious. Even so, I'm unable to turn my consciousness away from Mom, and suddenly, as though I divide, I find myself in her mind and body. The hour of her deportation is coming closer, and there's no help from anywhere. [..] nothing will fill up the eternal emptiness in the soul, brain, mind and heart that is created by the loss of one's most beloved person."
[14]
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Narrator:
David's mother later perished in the Chelmno extermination camp.
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Design Suggestion:
You may insert a song in your native language, relating to themes of anguish or loss.
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Narrator:
At the very end of her diary, three days before she was to be deported, Eva Heyman writes:
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Reader 1
May 30, 1944:
[..] dear diary, I don't want to die; I want to live even if it means that I'll be the only person here allowed to stay. I would wait for the end of the war in some cellar, or on the roof, or in some secret cranny. [..] just as long as they didn't kill me, only that they should let me live. [..] I can't write anymore, dear diary, the tears run from my eyes, I'm hurrying over to Mariska… (End of diary)
[15]
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Narrator:
Eva was caught by the Nazis, along with her grandmother and grandfather, and sent to the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp, where she was murdered. She was still only
thirteen years old.
These four young people should not have had to fear. They should not have had to bear the burdens they did, or see the sights they
saw. They should not have died. Let us remember their fate, so that such a tragedy
will never occur again.
Yizkor
May G-d remember the souls of our brethren, the children of Israel, victims and heroes of the Holocaust, the souls of six million Jews, who were put to death, and who were killed, and who were choked, and who were buried alive. May
G-d remember the holy communities who were destroyed for the sanctification of His name.
May G-d remember their sacrifice with the sacrifice of all other martyrs and heroes among the people of Israel from all eternity and let Him bind their souls in the Bond of Life. The beloved and the pleasant ones, in their lives and in their deaths they were not separated. May they repose in peace on their resting places.
Now let us respond: Amen. |
Narrator:
We conclude with the poem “Each of Us Has a Name”, by the poetess Zelda.
[To be read by readers six and seven, designated as "A" and "B"]
Each of Us Has a Name
Zelda
A)
Each of us has a name
given by God
and given by our parents
Each of us has a name
given by our stature and our smile
and given by what we wear
B) Each of us has a name
given by the mountains
and given by our walls
Each of us has a name
given by the stars
and given by our neighbors
A) Each of us has a name
given by our sins
and given by our longing
Each of us has a name
given by our enemies
and given by our love
B) Each of us has a name
given by our celebrations
and given by our work
Each of us has a name
given by the seasons
and given by our blindness
A) Each of us has a name
given by the sea
and given by
our death.[16] |
[1] Heyman, Eva, The Diary of Eva Heyman, Shapolsky Punlishers, New York 1988, p. 23, 28.
[2] Sierakowiak, Dawid, The Diary of Dawid Sierakowiak: Five Notebooks from the Lodz Ghetto, New York: Oxford University Press, 1996, pp. 21-22.
[3] Yad Vashem Archive O.48/47.B.1. Avraham Koplowicz was born
and lived in Lodz. He was murdered in Auschwitz-Birkenau in September 1944.
[4] Heyman, p. 57.
[5] Sierakowiak, p. 36.
[6] Morgenstern, Naomi, I Wanted to Fly Like a Butterfly, Yad Vashem, Jerusalem 1998, p. 12.
[7] Sierakowiak, p. 37.
[8] Sierakowiak, p. 41.
[9] Auerbach, Sarah Zalwer, From the window of my house, pp. 46-48 (Hebrew)
[10] Heyman, p. 89.
[11] Sierakowiak, p. 94.
[12] Egan, Leo, My Child and Other Poems of the Holocaust, Self Published, Los Angeles 1983. Leo Egan, born Leibel Zgierski, 1911. Leo survived the death camps and wrote this book at the age of 72.
[13] Sierakowiak, p. 218.
[14] Sierakowiak, p. 226.
[15] Heyman, p. 104.
[16] The Spectacular Difference: Selected Poems of Zelda, Hebrew Union College, Cincinnati 2004, Trans. Marcia Lee Falk.
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