Holocaust diary tells story of 'Polish Anne Frank'

By Robert MacMillan

NEW YORK (Reuters Life!) - Shortly after describing how a German soldier brutally murdered a baby after snatching the infant from its mother's arms, Rutka Laskier wrote affectionately about a boy who seemed to be always on her mind.

"I'm turning into an animal, waiting to die. One can lose one's mind thinking about this," the 14-year-old wrote.

"Now to everyday matters: Janek came by this afternoon ... While we were talking, he suddenly blurted out he'd like it very much if he could kiss me."

These juxtapositions appear throughout "Rutka's Notebook: A Voice From the Holocaust," an account of the girl's days in Bedzin, Poland, before being sent to the gas chambers at the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp.

The book depicts Jewish life under German occupation and reflects a growing desperation and anger as the people around her are sent to ghettos and deported. But it also focuses on her conversations with her friends, her on-again, off-again feelings for Janek, religion and marriage.

In the English edition, which is being released on Friday by Time Books and Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Authority, augment the diary with items such as photographs, maps and documents that show the Nazi advance across Eastern Europe.

The items place Laskier's portrait on the wider canvas of the war, explaining the meaning of German terms, and offering historical capsules that help readers unfamiliar with the Holocaust.

"They really try to make things in context," said Zahava Scherz, Laskier's half-sister who was born in Israel and never knew the family that her father had raised in Poland before emigrating after the war.