1. Young Writers Diaries of the Holocaust
Hope & Despair
Young Writers Diaries of the Holocaust

2. Salvaged Pages
“These writings capture the experience of young people from the inside—not as the Nazis decreed it, not as observers witnessed it, not as historians made sense of it after events occurred.” (Zapruder)
They wrote with:
no knowledge of the outcome
They observed and recorded
What they eat and how they dealt with hunger
How they communicated.
How they dealt with loss of home and family.
How they continued to hope for a better future.
Over the course of the next ten years, I gathered and researched more than sixty diaries written
by young people in occupied Europe. These writings capture the experience of young people
from the inside—not as the Nazis decreed it, not as observers witnessed it, not as historians
made sense of it after events occurred. They are records written without knowledge of the
outcome, as young people traveled through their daily lives, observing and recording as they did.
We, as historians, teachers, and students, mine them for historical information and find it in the
details. What did people eat? How did they communicate? What were their concerns? What were
their reprieves and joys? What surprises of daily life are contained within that we might not
assume or imagine from our perspective 60 years or more into the future?

3. Voices on Antisemitism
Hope & Despair
Anonymous Boy Lodz Ghetto
June 11, 1944, p. 371
July 15, 1944, p. 383
Compassion & Empathy Despair as Part of Suffering
Anonymous Girl Lodz Ghetto
March 5, 1942, p. 234
Hope for Individual Survival Hope for the World
Elsa Binder Stanislawow, Poland
January 30, 1942, p. 319
Fragments
Again, Alexandra Zapruder writes:
“These diaries, then, are broken and unfinished fragments from the Holocaust. Not
imbued with special gifts, overlaid with precious attributes, or assigned a sacred role,
they belong to the vast body of historical fragments that testify to our collective past.
And, like a fragment of an ancient pot that we may turn over in our hands to admire
for its beauty, to examine for its clues as to the past, and to ponder for its suggestion
of the passage of time and an era, these diaries are replete with their own information
and potency. Each reflecting specific circumstances and each with its own measure
of fact, truth, or insight, these diaries nevertheless make their contribution to an
understanding of the history of the Holocaust.” (Salvaged Pages, p. 10)
Alexandra Zapruder
Voices on Antisemitism
USHMM Podcast Series

4. Kristallnacht November 9-10, 1938
Synagogue in Gleiwitz before Kristallnacht
Klaus Langer
Diary begins in March 1937 after his bar mitzvah in Gleiwitz, Upper Silesia
Member of the Zionist Group
Defining event of diary is Kristallnacht
Main theme is the issue of emigration, or what he called the maze.
Map of Kristallnacht
Events of Kristallnacht
November 11, 1938
Salvaged Pages, pp
November 28, 1938 (second entry)
Salvage Pages, pp
Date: 1938 Locale: Gleiwitz, [Upper Silesia] Germany Credit: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Yoram Lustiger Copyright: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum View of the Gleiwitz synagogue before its destruction on Kristallnacht.

5. Obstacles to Immigration
Nations imposed elaborate and demanding application processes for entry visas, i.e. you have to have a visa to get a ticket, and a ticket to get a visa
Required by the United States
Mistrust of foreigners, anti-Semitism, and economic depression
Competition with thousands of equally desperate people for limited places
Financial hardships
Evian Conference, July 6-15, 1938
Struggle with Emigration
December 14, 1938 – January 5, 1939
Salvaged Pages, pp
September 8, 1939
Salvaged Pages, pp. 33
Mapping Initiatives
Online Exhibitions
Obstacles to Immigration
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EMIGRATION FROM GERMANY   Until Nazi Germany started World War II in 1939, antisemitic legislation in Germany served to "encourage" and ultimately to force a mass emigration of German Jews. The government did all it could to induce the Jews to leave Germany. In addition to making life miserable, the German authorities reduced bureaucratic hurdles so those who wanted to leave could do so more easily.
At the same time, the Nazis viewed the Jews' belongings and their financial capital as German property, and they had no intention of allowing refugees to take anything of material value with them. Most of those who fled had to relinquish their titles to homes and businesses, and were subject to increasingly heavy emigration taxes that reduced their assets. Furthermore, the German authorities restricted how much money could be transferred abroad from German banks, and allowed each passenger to take only ten reichsmarks (about U.S. $4) out of the country. Most of the German Jews who managed to emigrate were completely impoverished by the time they were able to leave.
OBSTACLES TO IMMIGRATION   Many nations in which the German Jews sought asylum imposed significant obstacles to immigration. Application processes for entry visas were elaborate and demanding, requiring prospective immigrants to provide information about themselves and their family members from banks, doctors, and the German police. In the case of the United States, applicants were required to provide affidavits from multiple sponsors and to have secured a waiting number within a quota established for their country of birth, which severely limited their chances to emigrate.
All this red tape existed against the backdrop of other hardships: competition with thousands of equally desperate people, slow mail that made communication with would-be sponsors difficult, financial hardships, and oppressive measures in Germany that made even the simplest task a chore. Finally, many who wanted to flee had, by necessity, to apply to numerous countries for entry. It is no wonder that for many Jews in Germany in the 1930s, the attempt to emigrate was more than a full-time job.
THE 1930s
In the late 1930s, a severe worldwide economic depression reinforced through Europe and the United States an existing fear and mistrust of foreigners in general, as well as antisemitism in particular. Above all, people were wary of immigrants who might compete for their jobs, burden their already beleaguered social services, or be tempted as impoverished workers by the promises of labor agitators or domestic Communist movements.
Even government officials in democratic countries were not immune to those sentiments. Most foreign countries, including the United States, Canada, and Great Britain, were unwilling to increase their immigrant quotas to admit very large groups of refugees, especially the impoverished and the dispossessed. Indeed, the United States refused to reduce the many obstacles to getting an immigrant visa, with the result that until 1938, the immigration quota for Germany was unfilled. Many German Jews who were in immediate danger were forced to emigrate elsewhere, such as France, the Netherlands, and Czechoslovakia, where eventually the wave of German conquest overtook them.
The bureaucratic hurdles for emigration were overwhelming. Far from streamlining the process to allow more refugees to enter, nations required extensive documentation that was often virtually impossible to obtain. In some cases, refugees literally faced a "catch-22": proof of passage booked on a ship was required for a visa, and proof of a visa was required to book passage on a ship.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt, responding to mounting political pressure, called for an international conference to facilitate the emigration of refugees from Germany and Austria, and to establish an international organization to work for an overall solution to the refugee problem. In early July 1938, delegates from 32 countries met at the French resort of Evian on Lake Geneva. Roosevelt chose Myron C. Taylor, a businessman and close friend, to represent the U.S. at the conference. During the nine-day meeting, delegate after delegate rose to express sympathy for the refugees. But most countries, including the United States and Britain, offered excuses for not letting in more refugees. Only the Dominican Republic agreed to accept additional refugees.
The conference attendees created the Intergovernmental Committee on Refugees (ICR), charged with approaching "the governments of the countries of refuge with a view to developing opportunities for permanent settlement" and seeking to persuade Germany to cooperate in establishing "conditions of orderly emigration." The ICR received little authority and virtually no funds or other support from its member nations. Its achievements were minimal until September 1939 when the beginning of World War II largely ended all efforts.
Commenting on the Evian Conference, the German government was able to state how "astounding" it was that foreign countries criticized Germany for its treatment of the Jews, yet none of them opened their doors. Although the events of the violent Kristallnacht ("Night of Broken Glass") pogroms of November 1938 were widely reported in graphic detail, Americans remained reluctant to welcome Jewish refugees and the quotas remained in place. Even efforts by some Americans to rescue children failed: the Wagner-Rogers Bill, an effort to admit 20,000 endangered Jewish refugee children, was not supported by the Senate in 1939 and 1940.
Jews hoping to receive exit visas at a police station in Vienna.

6. The following is a list of the documents required by the United States to obtain a visa.
Five copies of the visa application
Two copies of the applicant's birth certificate
Quota number (establishing the applicant's place on the waiting list)
Two sponsors:
Close relatives of the prospective immigrant were preferred
The sponsors were required to be U.S. citizens or to have permanent resident status, and they were required to have completed and notarized six copies of an Affidavit of Support and Sponsorsip
Supporting documents:
Certified copy of most recent federal tax return
Affidavit from a bank regarding applicant's accounts
Affidavit from any other responsible person regarding other assets (affidavit from sponsor's employer or statement of commercial rating)
Certificate of Good Conduct from German Police authorities, including two copies of each:
Police dossier
Prison record
Military record
Other government records about individual
Affidavits of Good Conduct (after September 1940) from several responsible disinterested persons
Physical examination at U.S. consulate
Proof of permission to leave Germany (imposed September 30, 1939)
Proof that prospective immigrant had booked passage to the Western hemisphere (imposed September 1939)

7. Knowledge of Adolf Hitler & Mass Murder`
Anoymous Boy
Lodz Ghetto
July 15, 1944, p. 383,
July 21, 1944, pp ,
Moshe Flinker
December 14, 1942, p. 106
January 26, 1943, p. 114
On Mass Murder
December 22, 1942, pp

8. Lodz Ghetto Hunger Hunger Anonymous Girl Lodz Ghetto
February 24, 1942, p. 231
March 10, 1942, p. 236
Date: Locale: Lodz, [Lodz] Poland Photographer: Mendel Grosman Credit: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Yad Vashem Photo Archives, courtesy of Arie Ben Menachem Moshe Zilbar Pinchas Shaar Copyright: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Close-up portrait of a destitute boy carrying a dinner pail in the Lodz ghetto.
Mendel Grosman ( ), Lodz ghetto photographer. The son of Hasidic parents, Grosman took an early interest in painting and studied with the artist Szylis, before devoting himself to photography. During the 1930s Grosman photographed the Habimah theater during its tour in Lodz.

9. Lodz Ghetto Deportation
Anonymous Girl
Lodz Ghetto
February 28, 1942
March 1, 1942
March 4, 1942
March 5, 1942
March 9, 1942, p. 235
March 12, 1942, p. 239
Give Me Your Children
Mordechai Rumkowski
September 4, 1942
Mordechai Chaim Rumkowski was born in 1877 in Russia. His family relocated to Poland where he maintained an unsuccessful career as the director of an orphanage.
On October 13, 1939, the Nazi occupation authorities appointed him Judenrat Chairman in Łódź. In this position he reported directly to the Nazi ghetto administration headed by Hans Biebow and had direct responsibility for providing heat, work, food, housing, and health and welfare services to the ghetto population.
With 230,000 people confined to a very small area that had no farmland, food quickly became a problem. Since the Nazis insisted on having the ghetto pay for its own upkeep, money was needed. But how could Jews who were locked away from the rest of society and who had been stripped of all valuables make enough money for food and housing? Rumkowski believed that if the ghetto was transformed into an extremely useful workforce, then the Jews would be needed by the Nazis. Rumkowski believed that this usefulness would ensure that the Nazis would supply the ghetto with food.
On April 5, 1940, Rumkowski petitioned the Nazi authorities requesting permission for his work plan. He wanted the Nazis to deliver raw materials, have the Jews make the final products, then have the Nazis pay the workers in money and in food. On April 30, 1940 Rumkowski's proposal was accepted with one very important change - the workers would only be paid in food.  It's to be noted however, that no agreement was put forth upon how much food, nor how often it was to be supplied.
Jews working in the Łódź ghetto
Rumkowski immediately began setting up factories and all those able and willing to work were found jobs. Most of the factories required workers to be over fourteen years old but often very young children and older adults found work in mica splitting factories. Adults worked in factories that produced everything from textiles to munitions. Young girls were even trained to hand stitch the emblems for the uniforms of German soldiers.
Rumkowski also managed social events. He performed marriage ceremonies when rabbis had to stop working. Later his name came to serve as the nickname of the ghetto currency, the “Rumkie”, and his face even appeared on the ghetto postage-stamps.
Some historians and writers see him as a traitor and as a Nazi collaborator. In all his activities, Rumkowski displayed great zeal and organizational ability, becoming increasingly dictatorial and ruling with an iron hand. However there are those who see Chairman Rumkowski as a tragic hero who did only what anyone else would do in the same circumstances.
Certainly, Nazi persecution did not stop because of Rumkowski's efforts. Even from the beginning, the Germans murdered Jews at random; more simply starved to death. Meanwhile, Rumkowski presided over the ghetto with what seemed to be growing self-aggrandizement. He encouraged artists to memorialize him; he appeared to revel in power. At the same time, he saw himself as ''a fatherly savior.''
Rumkowski’s style can be evidenced in his “Announcements” as seen here:
Date: Locale: Lodz, [Lodz] Poland Photographer: Mendel Grosman Credit: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Yad Vashem Photo Archives, courtesy of Arie Ben Menachem Moshe Zilbar Pinchas Shaar Copyright: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Close-up portrait of a destitute boy carrying a dinner pail in the Lodz ghetto.
Mendel Grosman ( ), Lodz ghetto photographer. The son of Hasidic parents, Grosman took an early interest in painting and studied with the artist Szylis, before devoting himself to photography. During the 1930s Grosman photographed the Habimah theater during its tour in Lodz.

10. "Friday, September 4, 1942:
    The deportation of children and old people is a fact....There is simply no word, no power, no art able to transmit the moods, the laments, and the turmoil prevailing in the ghetto since early this morning. To say that today the ghetto is swimming in tears would not be mere rhetoric. It would be simply a gross understatement, an inadequate utterance about the things you can see and hear in the ghetto of Litzmannstadt, no matter where you go or look or listen. There is no house, no home, no family which is not affected by this dreadful edict. One person has a child, another an old father, a third an old mother....All hearts are icy, all hands are wrung, all eyes filled with despair. All faces are twisted, all heads bowed to the ground, all blood weeps..."
   "Son of man, go out into the streets. Soak in the unconscious terror of the new-born babies about to be slaughtered. Be strong. Keep your heart from breaking so you'll be able to describe, carefully and clearly, what happened in the ghetto during the first days of September in the year one thousand, nine hundred forty-two."
-- from Days of Nightmare (monograph found after the war)
Jozef Zelkowicz,

11. The Diary of Anne Frank Refer to handout with Anne Frank quotes
Making room for one more
Outside world
Passage of time
Rescuers and risk
Parallel voices

12. Elsa Binder, Stanislawow, Poland
Elsa Binder wrote about the:
Impact of oppression an suffering on her own life
June 9, 1942, p. 327
Hope
In spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart. I simply can't build up my hopes on a foundation consisting of confusion, misery and death.
Anne Frank
December 31, 1941, p. 312
Proximity of Death
Monday, January 12, 1942, p. 314
March 18, 1942, p. 323
April 26, 1942, p. 325
Elsa Binder, Stanislawow, Poland
Her diary was found in a ditch on the way to the execution site for the Stanislawow Jews.

13. Jenny McConnell, Regional Educator
Resources
Alexandra Zapruder Podcast on Antisemitism
Facing History
Teaching Guide for Salvaged Pages
Kristallnacht Map, USHMM
I’m Still Here
Wood/dp/B0015XM2ZM/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid= &sr=8-1
Jenny McConnell, Regional Educator