2008 Woodie Awards
Rutka's Notebook: The Polish Anne Frank
Alisa Ungar-Sargon
Issue date: 5/13/08 Section: Arts and Culture
The launching party for "Rutka's Notebook," a diary written in 1943 Poland by a 14-year-old girl named Rutka Laskier, took place May 1 at the Museum of Jewish Heritage in Battery Park. Published by Time Books in conjunction with Yad Vashem, the 60-page diary was preserved by Rutka's Polish friend for 62 years before being released to the Polish public and most recently, to Hebrew- and English-speaking readers.
President and Publisher of Time Books, Richard Fraiman, emceed the intimate gathering, managing somehow to maintain the solemn tone of the event and simultaneously keep up the spirits. Zahava Scherz, Rutka's half-sister, was the main speaker of the night.
Scherz's father, before he passed on, was the sole survivor of his family, and never told Scherz about his prior children. In a heavy Israeli accent, Scherz told over the story of how she accidentally uncovered a family photo album containing pictures of a girl who looked remarkably like her. When she questioned her father, he told her about his previous family, lost in the flames of Auschwitz. A telephone call two years ago from Menachem Lior, a native of her father's hometown in Poland, alerted Scherz to the discovery of her half-sister's writings. "It took some time for me to read the diary, because I couldn't understand and I couldn't read the Polish language," Scherz said. "But when I started to read it, because someone had translated it for me to Hebrew, I started to discover Rutka, my half-sister. And I started to love her, to adore her, and to be very, very proud [of] her."
The short excerpt read from the diary itself acutely depicted the anxiety and panic of Rutka's experience, bringing it to a disturbing reality. Alongside her descriptions of adolescent day-to-day life were her alarming feelings of hatred and indifference towards the Germans and a gruesomely detailed murder.
Pitched as the "Polish Anne Frank," the instigators behind the promotion of "Rutka's Notebook" intend the memoir to be just that: read throughout the world, studied in schools, and examined in-depth by anyone of quality, reawakening the by-now dormant sensitivities toward the Holocaust. Though the many museums across the Atlantic are clearly on the radar, the compassion from the post-war generation is slowly evaporating, evident especially in the current state of the Israeli conflict and in the outbreaks of anti-Semitism that frequent newspaper pages. With a new Anne Frank, perhaps a hope for some of that old compassion may be revived long enough to be of some use.
Though her experiences hardly left her innocent, Rutka's account, like that of Anne Frank, is the record of a nation's turning point told by a person who was once considered its future. Forsaken in the past, she has left a legacy to her people, entrusting her story-her facts and her feelings-to their rebuilding. As Scherz said, "Rutka is not with us, and she will always remain 14, and she will always remain with us."
President and Publisher of Time Books, Richard Fraiman, emceed the intimate gathering, managing somehow to maintain the solemn tone of the event and simultaneously keep up the spirits. Zahava Scherz, Rutka's half-sister, was the main speaker of the night.
Scherz's father, before he passed on, was the sole survivor of his family, and never told Scherz about his prior children. In a heavy Israeli accent, Scherz told over the story of how she accidentally uncovered a family photo album containing pictures of a girl who looked remarkably like her. When she questioned her father, he told her about his previous family, lost in the flames of Auschwitz. A telephone call two years ago from Menachem Lior, a native of her father's hometown in Poland, alerted Scherz to the discovery of her half-sister's writings. "It took some time for me to read the diary, because I couldn't understand and I couldn't read the Polish language," Scherz said. "But when I started to read it, because someone had translated it for me to Hebrew, I started to discover Rutka, my half-sister. And I started to love her, to adore her, and to be very, very proud [of] her."
The short excerpt read from the diary itself acutely depicted the anxiety and panic of Rutka's experience, bringing it to a disturbing reality. Alongside her descriptions of adolescent day-to-day life were her alarming feelings of hatred and indifference towards the Germans and a gruesomely detailed murder.
Pitched as the "Polish Anne Frank," the instigators behind the promotion of "Rutka's Notebook" intend the memoir to be just that: read throughout the world, studied in schools, and examined in-depth by anyone of quality, reawakening the by-now dormant sensitivities toward the Holocaust. Though the many museums across the Atlantic are clearly on the radar, the compassion from the post-war generation is slowly evaporating, evident especially in the current state of the Israeli conflict and in the outbreaks of anti-Semitism that frequent newspaper pages. With a new Anne Frank, perhaps a hope for some of that old compassion may be revived long enough to be of some use.
Though her experiences hardly left her innocent, Rutka's account, like that of Anne Frank, is the record of a nation's turning point told by a person who was once considered its future. Forsaken in the past, she has left a legacy to her people, entrusting her story-her facts and her feelings-to their rebuilding. As Scherz said, "Rutka is not with us, and she will always remain 14, and she will always remain with us."
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