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Salvaged Pages: Young Writers' Diaries of the Holocaust
This stirring collection of diaries written by young people, aged twelve to twenty-two years, during the Holocaust has been fully revised and updated. Some of the writers were refugees, others were in hiding or passing as non-Jews, some were imprisoned in ghettos, and nearly all perished before liberation. This seminal National Jewish Book Award winner preserves the impressions, emotions, and eyewitness reportage of young people whose accounts of daily events and often unexpected thoughts, ideas, and feelings serve to deepen and complicate our understanding of life during the Holocaust.
The second paperback edition includes a new preface by Alexandra Zapruder examining the book’s history and impact. Simultaneously, an enhanced e-book incorporates a wealth of new content in a variety of media, including photographs of the writers and their families, images of the original diaries, artwork made by the writers, historical documents, glossary terms, maps, survivor testimony (some available for the first time), and video of the author teaching key passages. In addition, an in-depth, interdisciplinary curriculum in history, literature, and writing developed by the author and a team of teachers, working in cooperation with the educational organization Facing History and Ourselves, is now available to support use of the book in middle- and high-school classrooms.
The second paperback edition includes a new preface by Alexandra Zapruder examining the book’s history and impact. Simultaneously, an enhanced e-book incorporates a wealth of new content in a variety of media, including photographs of the writers and their families, images of the original diaries, artwork made by the writers, historical documents, glossary terms, maps, survivor testimony (some available for the first time), and video of the author teaching key passages. In addition, an in-depth, interdisciplinary curriculum in history, literature, and writing developed by the author and a team of teachers, working in cooperation with the educational organization Facing History and Ourselves, is now available to support use of the book in middle- and high-school classrooms.
512 pages, Hardcover
First published March 11, 2002
59 people are currently reading
2253 people want to read
About the author
Alexandra Zapruder
4 books29 followersAlexandra Zapruder was on the founding staff of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and was writer and co-producer of I'm Still Here, an award-winning documentary for young people based on Salvaged Pages.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 34 reviews
June 4, 2009
Though this is a collection of diaries and writings by adolescents, it's not a young adult book. It's more academic. Many if not most of the diary excerpts included are either out of print elsewhere or have never been published before. The diaries vary in quality and in detail, reflecting the variety of writers; the only thing they have in common is they were young Jews in occupied Europe. Each diary is prefaced with a detailed introduction describing what is known of the author's life and fate. The diaries are translated from many languages, including Czech, French, German, Hebrew, Polish and Yiddish. The book also includes two excellent appendices which list other known Holocaust diaries and discusses other personal Holocaust writings that don't fall within the scope of the author's project.
This is, I believe, a definitive collection and should be included in every library's Holocaust section. I was very impressed by the editor's scholarship and the wide range of diaries included.
This is, I believe, a definitive collection and should be included in every library's Holocaust section. I was very impressed by the editor's scholarship and the wide range of diaries included.
July 14, 2011
Diaries are useful, but in some ways they are so double edged. A prime example of this would be Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl. For many students, it is an introduction to WW II. It allows young children an entry way in to a subject that is both difficult and painful. Yet, as several critics have pointed out, the diary is limited because it presents, usually, one point of view. Therefore, Frank's Diary presents a rather limited view of one person in hiding.
This collection amends that. Frank is mentioned, but her diary isn't included. Zapruder includes a diaries from a wide variety of social classes, areas, and ages. Both boys and girls are included here.
These diaries chronicle not only the experience of those in the ghettoes, but also of those in various types of camps. One gets the experience of the regular, Ghetto dweller and the ghetto elite. Some of the stories end in tragedy, others live. Particularly moving are when writers are wondering about the fate of loved ones, loved ones who in many cases died. In the case of the surviors, there is a sense of finality that comes. Sometimes in a tragic sense and sometimes with a sense of hope.
There is something very haunting about entry written two years after the war, where the diariest notes that her brother has still not returned.
I do wish that some of the photos and sketches mention had been reprinted in the book.
This collection amends that. Frank is mentioned, but her diary isn't included. Zapruder includes a diaries from a wide variety of social classes, areas, and ages. Both boys and girls are included here.
These diaries chronicle not only the experience of those in the ghettoes, but also of those in various types of camps. One gets the experience of the regular, Ghetto dweller and the ghetto elite. Some of the stories end in tragedy, others live. Particularly moving are when writers are wondering about the fate of loved ones, loved ones who in many cases died. In the case of the surviors, there is a sense of finality that comes. Sometimes in a tragic sense and sometimes with a sense of hope.
There is something very haunting about entry written two years after the war, where the diariest notes that her brother has still not returned.
I do wish that some of the photos and sketches mention had been reprinted in the book.
June 5, 2017
Heartbreaking and important, Salvaged Pages was the first published book which focused solely upon the diaries of young people kept during the Holocaust. The diarists come from all walks of life and many different countries, and whilst some accounts are arguably better written than others, each is fascinating. Zapruder has deftly and sensitively edited the collection, selecting the entries which she feels evoke particular horrors or uncertainties. The introductory pages which she has written about each diarist are comprehensive, and the entire collection feels all the more poignant for them. Not one to read lightly.
July 17, 2013
Of course I gave this book 5 stars. It's my book! Appreciate all the kind reviews, especially from people I've never met.
May 31, 2024
Such a heartbreaking read.
Obviously how do you rate someone’s (several children’s in fact) personal experiences during a horrific and tragic time. You don’t. I gave this four stars and not five, because of the format. Each “diary” is started with an introduction AND everything known about the young writer. Knowing they died the day after the last entry (or lived thankfully in some cases!) before you even start reading… it was tough. I think I would have appreciated an introduction and then possibly some notes or input right in between entries. I was flipping between the entry and notes at the end a lot, which distracted from the entries.
I think collecting these diaries together into one book was a worthy idea and I appreciate the work, translation and research that went into it.
I took a long time to read this because each writer sent me down a research rabbit hole to know more about the context of what they were going through.
Obviously how do you rate someone’s (several children’s in fact) personal experiences during a horrific and tragic time. You don’t. I gave this four stars and not five, because of the format. Each “diary” is started with an introduction AND everything known about the young writer. Knowing they died the day after the last entry (or lived thankfully in some cases!) before you even start reading… it was tough. I think I would have appreciated an introduction and then possibly some notes or input right in between entries. I was flipping between the entry and notes at the end a lot, which distracted from the entries.
I think collecting these diaries together into one book was a worthy idea and I appreciate the work, translation and research that went into it.
I took a long time to read this because each writer sent me down a research rabbit hole to know more about the context of what they were going through.
December 30, 2018
A fascinating read!
This is a well researched, very informative and beautiful but harrowing collection of diaries written by young people during the Holocaust. The author done a brilliant job in connecting the subject and writers by their circumstances and situation, what their diaries convey and how it relates to other testimonies. We come to understand that Anne Frank wasn’t the only voice who speaks in terms of the holocaust, but from these accounts we enter the worlds of writers who become refugees in their native countries, have to flee to neutral ground, young people who, with their families and loved ones, are forced into ghettos/ concentration camps and succumb to starvation and disease. Some writers even die and their diaries miraculously survive them, others document their lives up to liberation and provide a realistic depiction of what it was like to overcome so much suffering and watch their families get murdered by the Nazis.
If you have an interest in history, non fiction or want to have a broader understanding of the holocaust, or even writings written by teenagers, this is the book for you. It offers a rich insight surrounding the era of world war 2.
This isn’t another Anne Frank book, written retrospectively and in the safety and security of family and helpers providing sanctuary, etc. but diaries written by teenagers hoping to survive the very moment and psychologically trying to understand the horrors in which they find themselves.
I found reading this book very powerful, and though it’s purpose isn’t to somehow bring the writers back to life, I found myself in their place, visualizing their torment and anxieties, being intimately close as they live the next entry and don’t know when their end will come. It’s important when reading books like this to have firm perspective; this isn’t perfected literature, but true to life’s documentations of ones fight for survival.
The new, multimedia edition to Salvaged Pages offers an even closer glimpse of the writers endurance. We get to see maps where the writers were situated throughout the war and their travels, war time photographs of the diarist and their families and friends, photographic evidence of the handwritten journals, and even videos of the authors telling their stories in present day. The author of this book also shows recorded videos reading an entry of each diarist and offering more biographical information, as well as giving her own philosophical understanding from the diaries being read, and her interpretation of those works.
This is a remarkable book and I’m sure one that will be taught for many decades to come, offering students as well as teachers a better understanding of world war 2’s history and the holocaust especially. It’s also recommended for students interested in creative writing and scholars wanting to study Writing.
This is a well researched, very informative and beautiful but harrowing collection of diaries written by young people during the Holocaust. The author done a brilliant job in connecting the subject and writers by their circumstances and situation, what their diaries convey and how it relates to other testimonies. We come to understand that Anne Frank wasn’t the only voice who speaks in terms of the holocaust, but from these accounts we enter the worlds of writers who become refugees in their native countries, have to flee to neutral ground, young people who, with their families and loved ones, are forced into ghettos/ concentration camps and succumb to starvation and disease. Some writers even die and their diaries miraculously survive them, others document their lives up to liberation and provide a realistic depiction of what it was like to overcome so much suffering and watch their families get murdered by the Nazis.
If you have an interest in history, non fiction or want to have a broader understanding of the holocaust, or even writings written by teenagers, this is the book for you. It offers a rich insight surrounding the era of world war 2.
This isn’t another Anne Frank book, written retrospectively and in the safety and security of family and helpers providing sanctuary, etc. but diaries written by teenagers hoping to survive the very moment and psychologically trying to understand the horrors in which they find themselves.
I found reading this book very powerful, and though it’s purpose isn’t to somehow bring the writers back to life, I found myself in their place, visualizing their torment and anxieties, being intimately close as they live the next entry and don’t know when their end will come. It’s important when reading books like this to have firm perspective; this isn’t perfected literature, but true to life’s documentations of ones fight for survival.
The new, multimedia edition to Salvaged Pages offers an even closer glimpse of the writers endurance. We get to see maps where the writers were situated throughout the war and their travels, war time photographs of the diarist and their families and friends, photographic evidence of the handwritten journals, and even videos of the authors telling their stories in present day. The author of this book also shows recorded videos reading an entry of each diarist and offering more biographical information, as well as giving her own philosophical understanding from the diaries being read, and her interpretation of those works.
This is a remarkable book and I’m sure one that will be taught for many decades to come, offering students as well as teachers a better understanding of world war 2’s history and the holocaust especially. It’s also recommended for students interested in creative writing and scholars wanting to study Writing.
November 3, 2015
A remarkable collection
It is always hard to personalize the human beings who died in the Holocaust. There were so many, and so much historic knowledge and cultural context died with them. This book gives voice and life to a wide variety of young Jews swept up in that huge event. Some died, some survived, but their young voices were preserved in amber by this diverse collection. This book was hard to read but it also remains with me as though I met each of them in life. I recommend the two appendices as well, which are a great reminder that the diarists preserved in the central part of the book were far from the only young people who chronicled what happened. May we always hear each of their voices in our minds, and honor them.
It is always hard to personalize the human beings who died in the Holocaust. There were so many, and so much historic knowledge and cultural context died with them. This book gives voice and life to a wide variety of young Jews swept up in that huge event. Some died, some survived, but their young voices were preserved in amber by this diverse collection. This book was hard to read but it also remains with me as though I met each of them in life. I recommend the two appendices as well, which are a great reminder that the diarists preserved in the central part of the book were far from the only young people who chronicled what happened. May we always hear each of their voices in our minds, and honor them.
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May 14, 2025Voices from the past that have so much to tell us, each in their own way as they struggled to make sense of a senseless world.
May 12, 2016
Salvaged Pages: Young Writers' Diaries of the Holocaust is an amazing book that brings you into the life of a young generation of people during the Holocaust. The beginning of the book starts off by interpreting the famous Anne Frank's diary to get the audience familiar with what they are about to read. I appreciated how the author incorporating background to to each diary writer before introducing their entertaining diary entries. The strengths of this book is details the author portrayed by choosing the the right portions of each person diary to further develop the situations they are facing. As far as weaknesses, the only small issue I had was having the dates and events go back and forth between each writer. However as you continue reading, it becomes easier to understand. Alexandra Zapruder did a great job on connecting the reader to the writer by not only showing the hardships each individual had, but by including other real life problems every developing teen and young adult has. I wanted to learn more about the Holocaust and with this book I did while being amused too.
October 29, 2012
If you want to explore daily life in the Jewish ghettos during the Holocaust, this book will take you there. It's a great next step for students wanting to dive deeper into Holocaust studies. Journal entries of teens and young adults (ages 14-22) show the daily emotional and physical struggle of living under Hitler's regime in these ghettos, but it also shows how heirarchies still arise and human nature of survival kicks in--even when we are all on the same team.
March 5, 2015
A very complete book which gives thorough información about the lives of young people in hiding and in concentration camps during world war 2. It's hard to read due to the cruelty the diarists had to endure in those so difficult times. How cruel humans beings can be has always left me speechless. I still wonder why history keeps repeating itself and why it is so difficult to love each other instead of spreading so much hate.
July 5, 2017
As A HS teacher, this book would be perfect for use in the study of the Holocaust using primary sources.
May 17, 2020
Quotable:
It is getting colder and colder. How dismal and dejected the ghetto looks! A cold rain whips through the small narrow streets. You become sad and bored during the long hours that you hang in one place. We do not go to school on account of an epidemic. It is a terrible time when you cannot settle down to some kind of work and you waste days on nothing. –Yitskhok Rudachevski
Today the ghetto celebrated the circulation of the hundred thousandth book in the ghetto library. The festival was held in the auditorium of the theater… Hundreds of people read in the ghetto. The reading of books in the ghetto is the greatest pleasure for me. The book unites us with the future, the book unites us with the world. The circulation of the hundred thousandth book is a great achievement for the ghetto and the ghetto has the right to be proud of it. –Yitskhok Rudachevski
I am so tense, I feel that I will crack up. And because of my nerves, I am mean to everyone. Because of my resentment and my nerves I really snap. –Miriam Korber
Why is a man, who is my peer and whom I see for the first time in my life, my deadly enemy, why can he kill hundreds of thousands of innocent people? There are some naïve people who believe in God and expect his mercy, or some answer. Unfortunately, I can only see the culture and the barbarism of the twentieth century, which are reflected in such acts. –Elsa Binder
It is getting colder and colder. How dismal and dejected the ghetto looks! A cold rain whips through the small narrow streets. You become sad and bored during the long hours that you hang in one place. We do not go to school on account of an epidemic. It is a terrible time when you cannot settle down to some kind of work and you waste days on nothing. –Yitskhok Rudachevski
Today the ghetto celebrated the circulation of the hundred thousandth book in the ghetto library. The festival was held in the auditorium of the theater… Hundreds of people read in the ghetto. The reading of books in the ghetto is the greatest pleasure for me. The book unites us with the future, the book unites us with the world. The circulation of the hundred thousandth book is a great achievement for the ghetto and the ghetto has the right to be proud of it. –Yitskhok Rudachevski
I am so tense, I feel that I will crack up. And because of my nerves, I am mean to everyone. Because of my resentment and my nerves I really snap. –Miriam Korber
Why is a man, who is my peer and whom I see for the first time in my life, my deadly enemy, why can he kill hundreds of thousands of innocent people? There are some naïve people who believe in God and expect his mercy, or some answer. Unfortunately, I can only see the culture and the barbarism of the twentieth century, which are reflected in such acts. –Elsa Binder
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July 12, 2025This book took me a long time to read because I would read one person's diary and then put it down sometimes for a few days. I attended TOLI (The Olga Lengyel Institute) last summer where the editor met with us via Zoom to discuss Holocaust diaries. Anne Frank's is the most famous, and it set the tone for future diaries to maintain hope and the human spirit. However, it was a tragic time and not always the reality. This collection focuses on young people and includes a list at the end of other diaries that have been found and where they are housed and/or published. The editor also has an appendix about what she included and other types of writings like memoirs and letters. Overall, it is an excellent read, and I hope to use excerpts with my students next year.
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April 18, 2020This collection was so moving that I cried during it and felt sick on multiple accounts. Before each diary entry, the auhtor's fate is revealed - whether they perished in a death camp or ghetto or made it out alive. Very valuable to read these accounts and be reminded of the vast amounts of inhumanity in the world, but of humanity as well.
May 4, 2020
We all know how badly the Nazis treated Jews but with this book. You get to read first hand what the horrors of the Ghettos and camps are. This book is brilliant by bringing all the journals from those who suffered the wrath of the Nazis and putting it into one book. These journals really are powerful and show you a different side you probably don't know that was there.
July 16, 2023
A very well-assembled collection of personal accounts from the Holocaust. It really does accomplish what it sets out what it intends to do: expand the number of voices from the cataclysm and, in so doing, draw our attention to our own assumptions about a monolithic experience. As poignant as it is considered, as heartfelt as it is even.
August 7, 2020
Hauntingly confronting! Had to read in multiple sittings - content is very overwhelming. The young voices shed dark light on some lesser known facets of the Holocaust’s horrifying dehumanisation of the Jewish race.
March 31, 2023
An excellent collection of diaries from young Jewish men and women before and during the Holocaust, recounting their daily lives and the atrocities they experienced and witnessed. The editor did a nice job of creating biographies for the diary authors and explaining their fates or presumed fates.
May 8, 2020
Gut wrenching and raw writing.
February 12, 2022
Incredible collection of journals from victims of the Holocaust. For educators, this book should be used to expand outside of Anne Frank and further humanize victims.
July 3, 2023
It is hard to review a book like this but I'm very glad I read it.
December 29, 2023
Suffer the little children
January 5, 2024
Get the digital copy. The extra resources are worth it! Pair it up with https://yahadmap.org/#map/ to research more.
January 7, 2026
Read it for an essay, gave me 1000 quotes
January 28, 2026
Read this for a gen ed class, a study of the holocaust and this book was phenomenal, the stories were raw
April 25, 2021
This book was a compliation of diaries from several young people during the Holocaust. It is always more tragic to read the accounts from Holocaust survivors and victims whose words survived, but it is even more moving to read them when they come from children and teens. I cannot imagine going through the things that so many people went through, especially as a child or teenager. This was a good book.
August 7, 2009
Alexandra spoke to our group during my fellowship with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 2002. She was a young scholar fresh from Harvard, and her dedication to deciphering the words of these children has proven invaluable. I use her work in my classroom, and the response from my students is always eye-opening.
January 11, 2011
Totally what you expect- heart breaking and eye opening and deeply moving. They were just regular teenagers living their realities when everything shattered. Good, bad, mundane, heroic- these journal insights had it all.
July 10, 2012
This was hard to read, such horrible things happening to lives ended too soon, but it was interesting to read of other young people during the Holocaust. I was able to hear Ms. Zapruder speak about this work and was very impressed.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 34 reviews