The Polish edition of The Diary of Rywka Lipszyc

The Diary of Rywka Lipszyc was discovered in the rubble of the crematoria at Auschwitz-Birkenau and was published 70 years later by the JFCS Holocaust Center. In the diary, Jewish teen Rywka Lipszyc chronicles her time in the Lodz Ghetto. The Polish-language version of Rywka’s diary debuted last month, printed in partnership with Austeria Publishing House in collaboration with the POLIN Museum in Warsaw.

One of USC Shoah Foundation’s newest online activities features Rywka’s inspirational words. The Polish-language activity is hosted on IWitness, an educational website developed by the USC Shoah Foundation which incorporates testimony from Holocaust survivors and witnesses from the Visual History Archive for use in multimedia-learning and online activities.

The new online activity, titled Wola przetrwania w piekle (“The will to survive in hell”), supplements students’ reading of Rywka’s diary. As part of the activity, students respond to short clips of survivor testimony about resistance in the ghettos and reflect on passages from the Rywka’s diary. The activity highlights Jewish civil and spiritual resistance to the Nazi oppression.

Rywka’s Diary is now accessible in print and on the web. Students throughout Poland also have the opportunity to explore the diary through a new, innovative exhibit at the Galicia Jewish Museum in Krakow. The JFCS Holocaust Center worked closely with museum staff in developing the exhibit, which uses Rywka’s diary as a tool to help visitors to enter the women’s world of the Lodz Ghetto. Beginning next year, the exhibit will travel internationally.

Learn more about the diary’s fascinating discovery and purchase Rywka’s Diary here >

Proceeds of the book benefit the JFCS Holocaust Center.

To donate to the JFCS Holocaust Center, please contact Barbara Farber at [email protected], 415-449-3858, or click here to give online.