New issue of “Holocaust Studies and Materials”

red., 16 November 2016
On December 10th, the Polish Center for Holocaust Research published the fifth issue of their annual publication entitled Holocaust Studies and Materials; this issue contains, among others, an exceptional testimony to the times of the Holocaust: a journal of a Jewish girl from Przemyśl, written in hiding. This journal presents, in a unique way, the problematic issue of the relations between the rescued and the rescuers. Written in the heat of the events, it is an extraordinarily valuable, uncanny document.

“In God’s name” are the words opening the journal of 17-year-old Cesia Gruft, written in the winter of 1942-43. The invocation was put on the first pages of nearly all schoolbooks before the war (the custom was still alive for several years after the war), so it is doubtful this was the title of the journal. Perhaps Cesia began this way on reflex, as if beginning a new excursive book? Whatever the reason, this customary invocation took on a deeper meaning in the context of an occupational diary.

God is often invoked in the pages of Cesia’s journal. One such invocation is also the final entry. The diary spans four months. There is no information as to what happened later. At the time there were sixteen long months left until the liberation of Przemyśl.


(Source: Łukasz Biedka)