Rutka's Notebook: January-April 1943

Laskier, Rutka

ISBN 10: 0976442574 / ISBN 13: 9780976442578

Published by Yad Vashem Publications, 2007

About this Item

The item shows wear from consistent use, but it remains in good condition and works perfectly. All pages and cover are intact including the dust cover, if applicable . Spine may show signs of wear. Pages may include limited notes and highlighting. May NOT include discs, access code or other supplemental materials.

Seller Inventory # BVV.0976442574.G

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Rutka's Notebook: January-April 1943
• Publisher: Yad Vashem Publications
• Publication Date: 2007
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0976442574
• ISBN 13: 9780976442578
• Binding: Soft cover
• Condition: good

About this title

Synopsis

Descriptions of alarming moments are intertwined with private and banal thoughts in the notebook of 14-year-old Rutka Laskier from Będzin, which documented her life during a few months in 1943. The outside world slowly closed down on her, but these few sheets of paper – some 60 handwritten pages in a notebook – reflect the entire universe of an adolescent Jewish girl in the shadow of death. Initial buds of womanhood, first loves, deceptions, friendships, jealousy and disputes are recorded in detail in the midst of deportations, fear, horror and death. These provide not only a moving, humane and historical testimony of Rutka’s life and death, but also represent that of tens of thousands of adolescent boys and girls during the Holocaust.

From School Library Journal

Grade 7 Up—Rutka Laskier was a Jewish teenager in Poland during World War II. For a few short months, before being deported to a concentration camp, she kept a diary describing her experiences. It was kept safe by a non-Jewish friend for 60 years following the war, and was finally published in Poland and Israel. This is the first U.S. edition. The diary itself is a combination of wartime horrors, social gossip, and teen angst. Photos and editorial notes clarify the situations that Laskier describes. While her writing lacks the narrative and philosophical qualities of Anne Frank's, it reveals in its ordinariness the tragedy of normal life cut short. More interesting than the book itself is the story of its survival and meaning. Accompanying essays describe its hiding and rediscovery, the turbulent life of Rutka's father (the family's only survivor), a younger half sister's discovery of Rutka's existence, the context of the diary in the canon of teen Holocaust writing, and more. A must-have for Holocaust collections, and a solid purchase for general YA collections.—Heidi Estrin, Feldman Children's Library at Congregation B'nai Israel, Boca Raton, FL
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