The Secret Holocaust Diaries

When searching for a title in the Kindle store, I depend on subject matter and reviews if it is a book written by an unfamiliar author. This book caught my eye and I have just finished reading it.

Nonna was a very young girl when she first started writing her diaries. Her father taught her five different languages and she wrote in most of them. She kept them to herself, all the stories of her childhood, growing up after the Russian Revolution, her experiences during and after WWII, and only started translating them after she came to the USA in the late forties. Forty years after her marriage, she told her husband that it was time for him to know what she had written and why she had hidden herself away in the attic so often over the years. The stories and poems are what make up this remarkable book.

The book opens with an incident on a train that was transporting people like cattle. A young Jewish mother, emaciated from starvation, throws her baby at the feet of Nonna's mother and out of a deep compassion, she takes care of the baby for the next 36 hours, hoping to not be detected. It was an act of courage and bravery that would later come back to haunt both of them.

The story then goes back to Nonna's childhood where she paints an idyllic picture of life in the Ukraine, even during the first years of the Russian Revolution. The mood and circumstances are firmly set in the readers mind so that the contrasts later on have greater impact. It is effective.

 Stories of war atrocities are familiar to all, but each one has its own personal touch. Nonna's story is very personal and her insights and struggles are well documented and tear at the heart of the reader. But, underneath all the pain and loss is a current of optimism and hope. These stories must be told, however, and each generation must become familiar with them. The heartless inhumanity must be exposed in the hope that it will prevent it from happening again.

Nonna was the only one left from her very large family and extended family. We cannot fathom the loss, but only grieve with her, but also rejoice with her that she survived and was able to keep the record and memories of her family alive.