Polish Holocaust Diarist- A Portraint of Rutka Laskier
by: Nathan Weissler

“The rope around us is getting tighter and tighter. Next month there should already be a ghetto, a real one, surrounded by walls.” These words were written by Rutka Laskier, a Polish-Jewish teenager in February 1943. Her diary, which was recently published in English in 2008, has caused her to be dubbed “the Polish Anne Frank.” Indeed, similarities abound. Both wrote noteworthy Holocaust diaries and perished in concentration camps as teens. Here is Rutka’s story….

Rutka was born in 1929 in a town in Northern Poland. She was the firstborn of Yaakov and Devorah Laskier and had a younger brother named Henius. In the early 1930s, Rutka’s family moved to Bedzin in Southern Poland. Upon the Nazi invasion of Poland in September 1939 and the outbreak of World War II, daily life became perilous for the Polish Jewish community. Indeed, Rutka moved with her family to Bedzin, Poland’s Jewish ghetto, where she wrote her now-famous diary.

Rutka described daily life under the German occupation. On January 19, 1943, Rutka recorded that, “A lot of people” were about to immigrate to what was then Palestine. As if able to predict the future, she added, “We too live in the hope of getting papers. I think that if this happens, I will be extremely sad to leave Bedzin. As if I am unconsciously curious to know what will happen here…” Then, she quickly changed the subject.

In April 1943, Rutka and her family were arrested by the Gestapo. Her diary however was saved by a Polish-Christian friend named Stanislawa Sapinska. Rutka had a pre-arrangement with Sapinska by which Rutka would hide the diary in a certain place where Sapinska would know where to find it. Sadly, Rutka perished along with her mother and brother in the gas chambers at Auschwitz in August 1943. However, Rutka’s father, Yaakov, survived Auschwitz ( he was the sole family survivor). After the war, Yaakov Laskier immigrated to Israel where he remarried and had a daughter: Zahava Laskier Scherz. Yaakov never publicly spoke about his wife and children. Meanwhile, Stainslawa Sapinska kept Rutka’s diary secret until 2006 when she disclosed its existence. Shortly thereafter, the diary was published in Polish, and an English edition followed, in 2008, titled Rutka’s Notebook: A Voice from the Holocaust.

We should all understand a quote from Rutka’s half-sister Zahava Scherz in her introduction to the English edition of the diary: “…when I imagine the murder pit of my family, of my sister [Rutka], I feel the pain I took upon myself in fulfilling her desire that her story be told, a burden I carry with honor and love.”

May not only Rutka’s memory but the memories of all the Holocaust victims be remembered throughout the generations! L’Chayim!