USHM Article Blog

Children's Diaries during the Holocaust 

During the time of the Holocaust, there where over 1.1 million children that fell victim to this murderous tragedy. These actions committed by the actions of the  Nazi soldiers, under the Axis power. 

The sufferings of there children, caused by this ignorance, can only be imagined. Although, there have been direct evidence into the tribulations they had to endure. 

A small amount of hand written diaries have been found throughout this time, and some of the ones retrieved have been owned by kids themselves. They have documented the heinous acts, and their overwhelming emotions they encountered.     

One of the first diaries obtained from this time period, was from a girl names Miriam Watternberg. This helped a wide range of people to examine, in depth, the horrific acts that happened during the Holocaust. She was born on October 10, 1924. She began writing in her diary around the wartime, where Poland surrendered to the power of German's army. Miriam's diary was one of the few that actually was written in English, and contained reports from the Warsaw ghetto. 

Another child diary owner, that is more well known, was Anne Frank. Anne wrote in her diary about her time spent in the attic of a warehouse of Amsterdam. Born Frankfurt-am-Main, Germany, on June 12, 1929, Anne Frank acquired this diary during on her twelfth birthday.  She began to write in detail of all the things that went on enclosed in the "secret annex". Sadly on August 4, 1944, German Police discovered them and sent them to Auschwitz. 

There are many different categories of content that are within the pages of a child's diary. The main documented occurrences are: diaries that were written by children that had fled the control of German domains, diaries about children in hiding, diaries of children that existed in a run down environment, under the constraint of German rule, or scarcely, diaries of children within the gates of a concentration camp. All of these records, created by the children of the Holocaust era, demonstrates them individually within the confines of the wartime situations. 

Citations
"Children's Diaries during the Holocaust." United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. United States Holocaust Memorial Council, 10 June 2013. Web. 21 Feb. 2014. <http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007952>.