Pamiętnik Mary Berg. Relacja o dorastaniu w warszawskim getcie

by Mary Berg

From the age of fifteen, as the German army poured into Poland, Mary Berg kept a day-to-day diary. For the first time since 1945, this heartrending, vivid portrayal of ghetto life is available to a global audience.

This astonishing record of life inside the Warsaw Ghetto ranks with the most significant documents of the Second World War. Here Mary Berg candidly chronicles not only the daily deprivations and mass deportations, but also the resistance and resilience of the inhabitants, their secret societies, and the youth at the forefront of the fight against Nazi terror. Above all it is a uniquely personal story of a life-loving girl’s encounter with unparalleled human suffering, offering an extraordinary insight into one of the darkest chapters of history.

Genres: Holocaust, Nonfiction, History, World War II, Memoir, Biography, Historical

428 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1991

About the author

There is more than one Mary Berg. Please see Mary^^Berg for the translator and Mary^^^Berg for the expert on Norman churches in Kent, England.

Reviews

[Tim · Rating 5 out of 5]

An incredibly moving and well written account of life in the Warsaw Ghetto. Reading this I realised that to call any survivor of that experience lucky is a complete misnomer. How can anyone feel lucky who has had to endure the murder of virtually all her friends and many members of her own family? Mary Berg survived the Warsaw Ghetto by virtue of the fact that her mother had American citizenship. She was fifteen when she entered the ghetto. This is a harrowing but brilliantly detailed account of what life was like there.

[Lisa Vegan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I can’t believe that I’d never heard of this book until recently. The first English language edition of it was published before the war ended, so early that facts and figures known at the time hadn’t caught up to the real statistics.

I have read many Holocaust books, including quite a few that included the Warsaw Ghetto and its uprising, but this account felt unique to me.

The author (real name Miram Wattenberg) wrote it from ages 15-19, and when she found freedom she then she went back and added, revised, etc. so the final result is a combination diary and autobiographical work, and I think it works perfectly this way.

It’s very well written. It’s an excellent book.

The immediacy of the account makes it both fascinating and difficult to read, and make it an important addition to the Holocaust genre. The reader is not spared the vividly described and detailed accounting of what exactly happened to Jews in the Ghetto under Nazi rule.

I relied heavily on the map of the ghetto, frequently referring to it. I very much appreciated all the included photos and drawings. I wish there had been even more of them. The photos were great and I’m glad that they survived.

The notes in the back were extremely and unusually helpful in this book since in part they are used to reveal mistakes made and misunderstandings that Mary had, things she included in her diary entries, so in my opinion they’re crucial to read. Mary’s diary proper was not altered, not even to correct for errors, so the notes serve this purpose, and also the purpose of giving more information than Mary did/than what she knew at the time. I didn’t find the index particularly helpful but I’m glad that it was included. One of the things she got/wrote wrong, as explained in the notes, was the details and date of the deportation of Korczak’s orphanage. Given that this an always in danger teenage girl right in the midst of chaotic events, it’s impressive how much she got right. Even after she was in safety in the United States, it’s a remarkable how much was gotten correctly, especially since it was published before the end of the war; Hitler was still alive at the time of publication.

I just happened to be reading this book over Holocaust Remembrance Day and it seemed fitting to do so.

When I read about starving people I always want to eat, more than I need, and this book described their hunger and their foods with such intense detail, and the book did make me want to overeat. The starvation of the people was described so vividly and so painfully.

Survivior’s guilt is mentioned throughout, since from start to finish Mary was aware of the privileges she had that many others in the ghetto did not have, including her friends and many extended family members; the good fortune that Mary & her sister & her parents enjoyed was due to the fact that her mother was a United States citizen; it gave them some measure of protection. As an intelligent and sensitive girl, Mary dealt with mixed feelings about that.

One thing that always impresses me about people under dire circumstances, and was true here, is how people continued to learn and to study and to go on with living, even when they knew that their lives might be taken at any time.

I grew to desperately care for so many people Mary mentions, even including some she did not look on favorably. As with some other Holocaust accounts, I once again marveled at how Catholic nuns often did so much to aide the persecuted Jews, particularly the children.

I almost gave it 4 stars vs. 5. The ending seemed rushed because there were fewer entries as time went on, and also some of the last passages seemed to be rewritten with publication in mind and had a different feel from rest of the account. Also, I was disappointed to not get more details of many of the people. In some cases this was not yet known or not safe to say. I guess I wish that Miriam Wattenberg had written an additional book of life after war, but it would have to have been a different kind of book. From this running account, I learned many new things about the Warsaw Ghetto and its liquidation I hadn’t already learned reading other books, seeing films, or reading other pieces. This book gripped my attention, and is a vital addition to the Holocaust genre and I’m so grateful that I finally learned of it and read it.

4-1/2 stars

[Gemma · Rating 4 out of 5]

A tough read. Mary Berg writes exceptionally well about her experience of growing up under the yoke of the Nazis. As usual with anything Holocaust related there are many moments that leave one utterly bewildered at the cruelty human beings are capable of. I can't imagine how it must feel to wake up every day knowing you might be shot for no reason or that it might be your turn to be herded off to the gas chambers.

[Linda Lipko · Rating 5 out of 5]

The copy I obtained was published in 1945 and retrieved from storage from the dusty shelves of my local library.

Despite international acclaim, for many years efforts to re-publish the book never came to fruition, in 2007 it was finally re-printed.

This book was Mary Berg's attempt to open the eyes of America and the world to the brutality and barbaric horrific practices of the Nazi's upon Polish Jews.

Hers was the first accounting of the reality of the Warsaw Ghetto. She and her family were in the ghetto from its inception. She was 15 when they were taken.. This book clearly, accurately chronicles the systematic attempt to eliminate the helpless Jews, herded like cattle, walled inside where their bodies were broken, but the spirit survived.

Despite all odds, Mary's family eventually arrived in the United States, where Mary carried 12 small note books written in her shorthanded code which chronicled what she witnessed in the Warsaw ghetto and the daily brutality.

Mary's testimony encompasses the time period from 1939 - 1944, when Warsaw fell into the hands of the Nazis through her Mary's safe arrival on the shores of America.

Because her mother was an American citizen they survived. While in the ghetto they were moved many times. Later, as unrest grew in the ghetto, they were moved into a prison where, from a window, she and her family witnessed the deportation of 300,000 Jews from the ghetto to certain death.

This is not an easy read, but I highly recommend it.

[Marissa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing! It's important to realize that this is not a novel, but the actual diary of a young girl. At first, I thought this would be pretty comparable to Ann Frank's diary, but it was completely different. Different circumstances, different country, different people. Mary was not in hiding, but living in the Warsaw ghetto. She gives a horrifying recollection of her time in the ghetto. At several parts in the book, I literally gasped out loud. I could not believe the unimaginable circumstances described through her entries. It's hard to believe something like this happened in our lifetime. How the Jews were so strong willed despite everything they were being put through is beyond me. Such a will to live and fight, and not give up. There was a tug at my heart strings throughout the entire book, especially for the children and all the starving people. I highly recommend this book for anyone with interest in the Holocaust. It shines a new light on the Warsaw Ghetto.

[Barb H · Rating 5 out of 5]

( "nee" Miriam Wattenberg )

I have long known of the inhumane treatment of Jewish people during the Holocaust. Yet I frequently read numerous accounts, both novels and non-fiction of this horrific period. I completed this book feeling deeply depressed and tearful. Mary Berg adeptly succeeded in capturing the inhumanity, the terror and the total waste during that time- almost better than any I had previously read.

When Mary Berg (Miriam Wattenberg) was barely 15, in December, 1939, she and her family were moved from their town of Lodz, Poland and imprisoned in the Warsaw Ghetto. It was there she faithfully penned her eye- witness account, considered some of the most influential to emerge from the ghetto.

Lodz had been a shtetl, a peaceful community, of both Jews and Gentiles, who lived and functioned mostly compatibly side-by-side, in almost equal numbers. The Jewish people had culture, professions and notable buildings. Following the war, not one Jewish person remained. While certainly the Polish population at large suffered during the war, it is well known that Anti-Semitism was rife in this country.

The Warsaw Ghetto, a walled Jewish quarter, was set up in 1939 to isolate, humiliate and torture the people. The walls were at least 9 feet tall and densely crowded many thousands of people there. They were victims of starvation, killings, disease and total desecration. The area remained until 1943, when the well-known uprising occurred. For many days,it involved many outnumbered, poorly armed, yet brave Jewish people who fought against their Nazi captors. When this ghetto was completely destroyed very few of these determined individuals survived.*

There is so much to read in this carefully detailed diary, but these chronicles are best read throughout this book rather than in my review. Notes, bibliography and an interesting introduction complete this edition.

Berg's diaries somehow managed to survive the many roundups, the moves and the years until she was allowed to be transported to America in March,1944, when she was 19. Mary and her family were surprisingly released for transport because of her mother's US citizenship . Her narrative seems well beyond that age, but it definitely is not surprising considering all that she had seen and experienced during the preceding years. Her writings were cleverly coded and written in minute script in several small manuscripts which enabled her to smuggle them out. In February, 1945, prior to the ending of the war, she agreed to have an English language edition published. She apparently was driven by a need to bear witness and inform the world of what had happened in the Warsaw ghetto. I believe that her success in voicing these facts was evident and heart rending.

Many well known diarists emerged from this heart-rending period and certainly they deserve acknowledgement. Familiar to most people, is The Diary of a Young Girl , a journal of Ann Frank, a younger girl whose circumstances differed from Mary Berg's. Another is, Shanghai Diary . I suspect that most would agree, considering the variance of their experiences, Mary was able to divulge greater insight and a remarkable historical record.


*For more details:
Warsaw - ushmm.org
www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?Modu...

[Maja - BibliophiliaDK ✨ · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's easy to compare this book with the diary of Anne Frank - at least, that's the case before you read them both and find out how different they actually are. Sure they are both diaries written by young, jewish girls but that's as far as the similarities go. In my opinion Miriam's diary contains far worse things than Anne's does. And still Miriam was the one to survive. Her account of the life in the Warsaw Ghetto and the prison of Pawiak is far from bright. It is dark, horrorfilled and heart wretching. It's filled with Miriam's cry for justice, for help and for survival.


WATCH MY VIDEO ABOUT WWII MEMOIRS AND DIARIES ON MY BLOG

[Czytam Sercem · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dziennik Mary Berg wydany w Stanach Zjednoczonych w 1945 r. był pierwszą anglojęzyczną relacją na temat codzienności w getcie warszawskim.

[Allison · Rating 5 out of 5]

Pretty much everyone has heard of the Diary of Anne Frank, but what about the diary of Mary Berg? Mary was a Polish-Jewish teenager who wrote a diary about her life in the Warsaw Ghetto. Because her mother was an American citizen, she and her family avoided deportation and were able to start a new life in America. She published her diary in book form while the war was still going on. The original Polish diary did not survive, which is a real shame.

There are many nonfiction books and eyewitness accounts about the Holocaust, but the Diary is particularly striking and powerful. Though it was edited and polished for publication, it was actually written during the event. This gives the writing a certain intensity, and an overwhelming feeling of despair. The descriptions of day-to-day life in the ghetto are extremely detailed, and even after 70 years they're still shocking. It's hard to believe Mary was just 15 when she wrote it, and 20 when it was published. She was clearly a talented and impassioned writer, it's a shame this is her only work. Because this was a contemporary account, Mary made mistakes about certain details, figures, etc. There's a huge glossary at the back explaining her errors and putting various details into context.

Mary mentions wanting to raise awareness of the Holocaust and hopes Americans will support her cause. For a while, she did just that. But after the war she renounced her Jewishness and distanced herself from the book. Her life during the war was truly tragic, and it seems like even afterward she was unable to find peace.

[Pamela · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is it - the diary that Anne Frank was not able to finish. A masterpiece by a young woman who made it out of the Warsaw Ghetto (owing to a loose familial connection to the US) but witnessed many of its horrors nonetheless and kept a diary to record them. The writing is stunning for a girl of this age. A true heart-breaker. Five stars.

[Judit · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not an easy book to read. But definitely a good one. It's a diary but very well written. Honest but not sentimental. Highly recommended.

[Tiffany]

Not sure if I can rate this given that this is a first hand account about the Holocaust and it doesn't feel right to give any star ratings to such a book. However, I can review it- and once I feel better and can think more clearly, I am planning on doing just that.

[Eem · Rating 5 out of 5]

Een must read. Het omschrijft dingen die we nooit geleerd krijgen op school, maar die wel belangrijk zijn.

[Dolceluna ♡ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Questo libro trasuda sangue. E' quello delle centinaia di migliaia di ebrei uccisi nello smantellamento del più grande ghetto d'Europa, il ghetto di Varsavia. Mary Berg, quindicenne allo scoppio della guerra, ne riesce a sopravvivere grazie a un trattamento privilegiato dovuto alla nazionalità americana della madre, ma vive comunque, sino alla liberazione e alla partenza per l'America, la miserabile vita quotidiana del ghetto e la descrive, con uno stile secco ma particolareggiato, attento ai dettagli storici, in un diario, crudo, amaro, struggente. Un'Anna Frank polacca dunque? Non proprio. Certamente entrambe hanno avuto la sventura di vivere sulla loro pelle adolescente le tragedie di quegli anni ed entrambe ne hanno lasciato una testimonianza in prima persona, questa della Berg forse meno nota ma non per questo meno importante. Se però quello della Frank era un diario più intimo, circoscritto alla sfera familiare e portavoce delle sue vicissitudini quotidiane in un ambiente nascosto e limitato, questo della Berg ha una dimensione più collettiva e storica, analizza con lucidità gli avvenimenti che hanno segnato la vita del ghetto, riporta con precisione e fermezza condizioni, fatti, situazioni che hanno colpito la gente di quel posto in quegli anni, dai rastrellamenti agli ordini delle SS, dalle coraggiose organizzazioni sociali e artistiche sorte fra i giovani, sino alla formazione dei gruppi di resistenza, passando per gli arresti, le deportazioni e le fucilazioni dei bambini: insomma, lo spazio dedicato alla descrizione di aspetti personali della vita familiare è ridotto, il vero protagonista è il popolo schiacciato del ghetto di Varsavia. Ne risulta una visione d'insieme più mirata e concentrata, densa e fortemente realistica (tanto che in alcuni tratti, soprattutto nella prima parte, si ha l'impressione di avere fra le mani un saggio e non un diario). Ma non per questo la scrittura è priva di umanità e partecipazione, specialmente nei passi di chiusura, macchiati di tristezza ma aperti a una speranza sul futuro.

[Harriet · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well written. Found it quite fascinating since she was originally from Lodz which is where my in-laws were from. They survived the Lodz getto, primarily because they were young and healthy and able to work. They suffered a great loss of their entire families and I felt compelled to read Mary Berg's account of the experience to pay homage to them. Mary was far better off than most, including my relatives but she does state that and felt guilty because of it though there was little more that she could do to help others than the fundraising and aide she did give.

[Claudia Moscovici · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Diary of Mary Berg, a Polish survivor of American origins of the Warsaw Ghetto, has recently been in the news, a feature story in The New York Times. The journal contains entries from October 1939 to March 1944, offering first-hand details about the Nazi occupation of Poland, the establishment and destruction of the Warsaw Ghetto, where nearly 400,000 Polish Jews lost their lives. Published in 1945 by L. B. Fisher, the diary initially received a lot of media coverage but went out of print in 1950. Thereafter the author declined opportunities to discuss her experiences of the Holocaust and even sometimes denied the diary’s existence. Nonetheless, the book resurfaced in 2006, published by Oneworld Publications under the title The Diary of Mary Berg: Growing Up in the Warsaw Ghetto and edited by S. L. Shneiderman, with an introduction by Susan Pentlin. Shneiderman had also translated the original diary from Polish into Yiddish and hired Norbert Guterman and Sylvia Glass to translate the Polish edition into English.
The diary took the spotlight again in a New York Times Books article by Jennifer Schuessler entitled “Survivor Who Hated the Spotlight” (published on November 10, 2014), which covered the recent auction of Mary Berg’s private photographs due to be sold at Doyle New York, a Manhattan auction house. How did these photographs resurface? Ms. Berg herself passed away in 2013. A Pennsylvania antique dealer bought her photographs, which had an estimated value of thousands of dollars, at an estate sale for only ten dollars. After relatives heard the news of the planned auction, they contacted Doyle and the auction house cancelled the auction, which had been scheduled for November 24, 2014. Schuessler cites Rachel B. Goldman, Assistant Professor of History at the College of New Jersey and a Judaic Studies expert, who maintains that the auction provoked a sense of outrage. She explains why: “This could set a tragic precedent of less Holocaust material being put in archives and instead ending up in private hands—including the wrong private hands, I might add.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/11/art...

These photographs, like the diary itself, offer an invaluable glimpse into the horrific lives even of the privileged inhabitants of the Warsaw Ghetto. Coming from an affluent family (her father was a successful art dealer and collector of the European masters such as Poussin and Delacroix), Mary Berg was especially fortunate to have a mother who was an American citizen. The Nazis generally treated American citizens differently from Polish captives, in the effort to launch a propaganda campaign that hid from the American press details about the persecution and massacre of European Jews. Mary Berg’s diary was one of the first eyewitness accounts of the Holocaust in Poland. It describes the tremendous duress of the hundreds of thousands of Jews trapped by the Nazis in the Warsaw Ghetto and provides anecdotal accounts of the heroic and tragic Warsaw Ghetto uprising, which Mary received news about from survivor friends.
Originally from Lodz, where the Nazis had already set up a Jewish Ghetto, Mary moved to Warsaw with her family, hoping that life would be better there. In November 1940, however, the Nazis established the Warsaw Ghetto, where Mary was trapped with her family until a few days before the mass deportations to concentration camps, in the summer of 1942. She saw with her own eyes the brutality, the beatings, the random shootings of innocent civilians. She witnessed from her window countless people being forcibly deported to the Treblinka death camp and to Auschwitz. She saw, helplessly, thousands of children reduced to skin and bones. She barely escaped death herself. Due to her mother’s American citizenship, Mary, her parents, and her sister were sent to a camp in Vittel, France, which, as she states in her journal, seemed like “paradise” compared to the hardship and horror of life in the Warsaw Ghetto.
Mary Berg’s diary offers a unique testimony about privilege and persecution in the Warsaw Ghetto. Originally the wealthier, well-connected members of the community could buy privileges, including jobs, exemptions from forced labor or deportation and, perhaps most importantly, the contraband food needed to ward off starvation. As members of the wealthier class, Mary and her friends helped organize charity talent shows, which not only gathered donations to feed the orphaned children and the starving poor in the ghetto, but also raised the public morale. Eventually, however, as the Nazis began implementing the Final Solution, even the wealthy faced the dangers of starvation, deportation and death.
Although privileged and young, Mary Berg is not only an incredibly astute observer of historical events, but also a highly compassionate person. Even when she and her family has enough to eat, she feels guilty for those who are starving in the Ghetto and does what she can to help them. After her family manages to escape the Ghetto, she is haunted by frequent nightmares about the hundreds of thousands of innocent human beings who lost their lives in that living hell. In the one of the most moving scenes of her journal, Mary describes a scene that she will often relive: the day the orphans in the Warsaw Ghetto, led by their beloved teacher Dr. Janusz Korczak, went with dignity to their deaths:

“Dr. Janusz Korczak’s children home is empty now. A few days ago we all stood at the window and watched the Germans surround the houses. Rows of children, holding each other by their little hands, began to walk out of the doorway. There were tiny tots of two or three among them, while the oldest ones were perhaps thirteen. … They walked in ranks of two, calm, and even smiling. They had not the slightest foreboding of their fate. At the end of the procession marched Dr. Korczak, who saw to it that the children did not walk on the sidewalk. Now and then, with fatherly solicitude, he stroked a child on the head or arm, and straightened out the ranks” (169).

This sad procession walked to the cemetery. “At the cemetery all the children were shot” (169). Janusz Korczak was forced to watch their murder, then was executed by the Nazis himself. If there any episode in history can be said to capture the horror and brutality of the Holocaust, the massacre of the orphaned children of the Warsaw Ghetto would be it. Civilization—or rather the lack thereof—cannot sink any lower than this.


Claudia Moscovici, Literature Salon

[Orinoco Womble (tidy bag and all) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading this book was a strange experience for me. Having heard references to the Warsaw Ghetto horror all my life, I was curious to read this diary/memoir, though Mary's experience was hardly the norm. Anne Frank was also in an "abnormal" situation as she was in hiding and only had rumours and second-hand knowledge of what went on in the outside world. While Mary "was there", in a real sense she too was at a certain remove from the experiences of "normal" ghetto residents, given the fact that her parents were quite well-to-do; her father was an art and antiques dealer, and her mother was born in the US. This gave them certain advantages vis-a-vis life in the ghetto, not to mention greater chances of survival and eventual liberation. When things started getting particularly bloody in Warsaw, Mary and her family were interned in France--in a health resort, of all things--and eventually joined a convoy of people in a hostage/prisoner exchange.

One aspect that took some getting used to was reading of Mary's participation in concert parties, theatre groups, and classes within the ghetto--she and her classmates were studying technical and artistic design, with at least at first German approval. They held concerts and parties at ghetto restaurants and cafes while all around people died of starvation and disease...a rather surreal reading experience.

We know that the diary was published during the war as a cry for aid to the Jews remaining in Poland, and that Mary edited and rewrote parts of the original before that. Perhaps that explains why she seems emotionally distant at times, particularly when talking about the young men who fell in love with her and her reaction to her friends' expressions of kindness and emotion; perhaps that was the only way she could deal with them without breaking down entirely. There are none of the emotional ups and downs of Anne Frank's diary, no angry outbursts or soaring hopes followed by letdown, even though she was quite young (ages 15 to 19) during the time she kept the diary. Perhaps she cut out any emotional passages as being "unworthy" of the purpose she had in mind.

There's a great deal of preface and explanatory notes in this edition, which tell us that after "heroine" status in the US until the 1950s, Mary (Miriam Wattenberg) distanced herself entirely from this book and the whole experience, which is understandable. She probably felt unable to carry the burden any longer and just wanted as normal a life as possible. However, although the editor of this edition was in touch with her in the early 1990s, she seems to have dropped out of sight. It would be interesting to know if she married, had children etc.

It's hard to express my reaction to this document; I'll probably have to read it a few more times, as I do with Anne Frank's diary.

[Marisa Fernandes · Rating 4 out of 5]

Já li vários livros sobre o Holocausto. Já li vários diários escritos por quem viveu o Holocausto, mas nenhum é igual ao outro. Há sempre algo de novo nos livros e este não é excepção!
Para começar, o país a que pertencem (isto é, onde nasceram e cresceram), as condições sócio-económicas da própria família, a educação e a faixa etária de quem escreve acabam por influenciar e distinguir os diários uns dos outros. De igual modo, o facto de se tratar de um homem ou de uma mulher acabará também por condicionar o seu futuro como judeus.
No que respeita a "O Diário de Mary Berg", a sua autora começa a escrever com quinze anos, a 10 de Outubro de 1939, já iniciadas as primeiras perseguições efectivas aos judeus, verificando-se igualmente a presença alemã na Polónia e começada a Segunda Guerra Mundial. A autora escreve a última entrada do seu diário a 5 de Março de 1944, a caminho dos EUA (a mãe era de nacionalidade americana), com cerca de 19 anos.
Ao conseguir salvar-se, muitos são os conhecidos, os amigos e os familiares que deixa, sem outro remédio, para trás. Mary escreve para que o mundo saiba, para que o mundo conheça o que aconteceu às inúmeras vidas que pereceram por uma questão de credo e raça, deixando-nos, com frequência, descrições detalhadas e minuciosas do que se passava nas ruas do gueto... Por vezes, do nada, mas, outras vezes, vindo ao encontro do clima de medo que se vivia..!

*
"(...) diz a todos os que ainda vivem que nunca os esquecerei. Farei tudo o que puder para salvar os que ainda podem ser salvos e para vingar os que foram tão amargamente humilhados nos seus últimos momentos. E os que foram reduzidos a cinza, vê-los-ei sempre vivos. (...) Sê paciente, Rutka, tem coragem, aguenta. Mais um pouco de paciência e todos nós seremos livres!" (Berg, 2015, pp.326 e 327).

[Ruth Ann · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Diary of Mary Berg: Growing Up In the Warsaw Ghetto is a true accounting by Mariam Wattenberg. She was the first one to describe, in English, events about the establishment of the Warsaw Ghetto, what everyday life was like as the horrors of living in the Ghetto increased, and the deportations to the death camp at Treblinka. Her family was able to leave before the final deportations because her mother had an USA passport. After internment in France, the family came to New York under a prisoner exchange. Mary's story was published before WWII was over and the book was out of print by 1950.

In June 2014, Glen Coghill goes to an estate sale in York County in Red Lion, Pennsylvania. He bids on photo albums that include fighter planes and a scrapbook. Coghill gets home and discovers that this local woman was Mary Berg and he had found about 300 pictures "chronicling Berg’s early life in Poland in the 1920s and through the 1950s, when she stepped away from the limelight." Read about his find at Tablet Magazine. All this leads to our Book Club at one of the York County Libraries locations picking Mary's book as its March 2017 read.

My first introduction to the Warsaw Ghetto was through John Hershey's novel The Wall. His book had a profound effect on me when I read it in 1967 in that it not only vividly described the dehumanizing events, but also the resilience of the residents. Mary began her diary at fifteen years old and she quickly realizes the advantage that those of privilege have with the chances of survival. Her eyewitness memoir is a valuable document to read and to preserve for future generations.

[Rita]

WRB July 2008. BOUGHT 2025

First pubilshed in 1944 !

"A teenager's account of life in the Warsaw Ghetto 1940 to 1944"

One reader says:
Well written. Found it quite fascinating since she was originally from Lodz which is where my in-laws were from. They survived the Lodz getto, primarily because they were young and healthy and able to work. They suffered a great loss of their entire families and I felt compelled to read Mary Berg's account of the experience to pay homage to them. Mary was far better off than most, including my relatives but she does state that and felt guilty because of it though there was little more that she could do to help others than the fundraising and aid she did give.

[Maria João · Rating 2 out of 5]

Como é possível... é a única coisa que consigo dizer depois de ler este livro. Para dizer a verdade não só demorei mais algum tempo do que estava à espera como tive de deixar o livro "assentar" antes de fazer um comentário.

Acho que por mais livros que leia acerca do assunto o Holocausto nunca deixará de me impressionar o que é bom, por um lado, mas por outro, minha nossa.

Acho que não vale a pena me estar a alongar na história que todos conhecemos tão bem, basta apenas dizer que temos que admirar quem todos aqueles que passaram por esta época negra, os que sobreviveram e nos contam a sua história e aqueles que infelizmente pereceram. Obrigada.

Quanto a este livro não gostei tanto como outros do género, mas deve-se dar valor de qualquer das formas.

[Karen Cremean · Rating 4 out of 5]

Several things affected me: The chronicle of events as they were happening was heinous. I could NOT wrap myself around the day to day trauma and the residents' efforts to continue a normal life, a truly VALIANT effort to be normal and to continually embrace their faith. This book disappeared in the published sense, in favor of Anne Frank's "The Diary a Young Girl". Each showed the horrific side of the war, but this one...THIS one made you look at the ugliness, cruelty and hope of it all and weep for the victims and survivors.

[Kathy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quotable:

The Nazis...knew that the greater the crimes, the less credible they would appear.
Abroad, it was imagined that the Jews were a mass of human beings apathetically awaiting slaughter.

December 26, 1943
This year our Chanukah feast coincided with Christmas, and many Jews and Gentiles felt that this fact was symbolic. Chanukah candles are lit in many of the rooms occupied by Jews, while the Christmas tree in front of the church is decorated with tinsel. Perhaps our common suffering and persecutions will finally eradicate blind race hatred?

[Nicole · Rating 5 out of 5]

A really extraordinary account of life in the Warsaw ghetto and then escape to America. Her survivor's guilt echoes in every word and it is difficult to read; and it seems she never found peace, but at least her words brought early attention to the plight at hand. I would definitely recommend giving this a read.

[Hannah Scott-Ravikumar · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you only read one other memoir of the Holocaust besides Anne Frank's diary, read Mary Berg's diary!

[Adelaide Silva · Rating 4 out of 5]

4,5* Um livro que me fez lembrar Anne Frank e o seu diário, tal como Anne, Mary começou a escrever o seu diário para se manter entretida e se confortar enquanto esteve presa no gueto, mas ao contrário de Anne, Mary sobreviveu até 2013 e a 1ª edição do seu diário foi em 1945 após chegar aos USA.
É um relato na primeira pessoa sobre o Holocausto. Não é um livro fácil de ler mas para quem gosta da temática é interessante ver as menções ao Dr: Janusz Korczak já mencionado noutros relatos verídicos como no livro Os Meninos de Varsóvia de Elisabeth Gifford

[Olivia Rui · Rating 5 out of 5]

rated not especially for writing style but rather for historical significance

there were so many moments especially in the second half of the book that were actually painful to read... a lot of Mary's wonderings about whether she even had a right to leave when so many family and friends were still in Warsaw hit especially hard

in the preface of the book it was mentioned that Mary's diary was edited before publishing to the point where it might be better considered as a diary-memoir than just a diary. on this point I do wish that the diary was left more or less as is and for all the historical context to be placed in the footnotes

[Lena · Rating 5 out of 5]

Poruszająca. Pierwszy raz płakałam nad książką.

[Mel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Un relato difícil de imaginar. Un poco más acerca de ese periodo oscuro de nuestra historia a través de los ojos de una sobreviviente.

[Lara Mendonça · Rating 5 out of 5]

O melhor relato que já li sobre o gueto de Varsóvia! Um livro difícil devida aos relatos de uma sobrevivente! Vale muito a pena a leitura!