The Diary as Survival. Three Holocaust Diaries

There is a significant number of personal documents of a testimonial nature regarding the tragedy of the Holocaust (juridical testimonies, memories, diaries, etc.). Out of all these, the diary can probably best express the authenticity of traumatic experience. This happens because the diary is a text that can accurately transcribe an unmediated experience of horror and suffering. The paper focuses on three Holocaust diaries written by three teenagers who perished in this collective tragedy (Rywka Lipszyc, Renia Spiegel, and Dawid Sierakowiak). They were all dedicated to diary writing as a form of living and recording the inferno and as a paradoxical way of surviving despite their tragic physical death. The marks of their lives through the inferno of the Holocaust will remain only on the paper of the diary, unfortunately destined to physical degradation, destruction, or even loss. It is then vital to preserve these texts since the diarists themselves are expected to survive in our cultural memory as long as the texts themselves are kept alive. For all diarists, the diary becomes the key to survival.