Helga's Diary
A Young Girl's Account of Life in a Concentration Camp
Published on 2. January 2014
Book
Paperback/Softback
272 pages
978-0-241-95950-3 (ISBN)
Description
'The most moving Holocaust diary published since Anne Frank' Daily Telegraph
First they led us to the baths, where they took from us everything we still had. Quite literally there wasn't even a hair left. I didn't even recognize my own mother till I heard her voice . . .
In 1941, aged 12, Helga Weiss, her mother and father were forced to say goodbye to their home, their relatives and all that they knew, and were interned in the Nazi concentration camp of Terezin. For the next three years, Helga documented her experiences there, and those of her friends and family, in a diary. Then they were sent to Auschwitz, and the diary was left behind, hidden in a wall.
Helga was one of a tiny number of Jewish children from Prague to survive the holocaust. After she returned home, she eventually managed to retrieve her diary and completed the journal of her experiences. The result is one of the most vivid first-hand accounts of the Holocaust ever to have been recovered.
'Anne Frank's diary finished when her family was rounded up for the camps: in Helga's Diary, we have a child's record of life inside the extermination factories. Shines a light into the long black night that was the Holocaust' Daily Express
'Resounds with a ferocious will to endure conditions of astonishing cruelty. Displays a rare capacity to remain keenly observant and to find the right words for transmitting . . . memory into history' New Statesman
'A moving testimony to courage and endurance. Remarkable . . . what is so compelling is the immediacy and unknowingness' Financial Times
First they led us to the baths, where they took from us everything we still had. Quite literally there wasn't even a hair left. I didn't even recognize my own mother till I heard her voice . . .
In 1941, aged 12, Helga Weiss, her mother and father were forced to say goodbye to their home, their relatives and all that they knew, and were interned in the Nazi concentration camp of Terezin. For the next three years, Helga documented her experiences there, and those of her friends and family, in a diary. Then they were sent to Auschwitz, and the diary was left behind, hidden in a wall.
Helga was one of a tiny number of Jewish children from Prague to survive the holocaust. After she returned home, she eventually managed to retrieve her diary and completed the journal of her experiences. The result is one of the most vivid first-hand accounts of the Holocaust ever to have been recovered.
'Anne Frank's diary finished when her family was rounded up for the camps: in Helga's Diary, we have a child's record of life inside the extermination factories. Shines a light into the long black night that was the Holocaust' Daily Express
'Resounds with a ferocious will to endure conditions of astonishing cruelty. Displays a rare capacity to remain keenly observant and to find the right words for transmitting . . . memory into history' New Statesman
'A moving testimony to courage and endurance. Remarkable . . . what is so compelling is the immediacy and unknowingness' Financial Times
Reviews / Votes
The most moving Holocaust diary published since Anne Frank * Telegraph * A moving testimony to the courage, endurance and painfully premature maturity of the young victims of the Holocaust * Financial Times *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Target group
Young adult
Product notice
Paperback (UK-B)
Illustrations
20 illustrations by the author, in black and white and colour, as well as photographs
Dimensions
Height: 198 mm
Width: 126 mm
Thickness: 25 mm
Weight
205 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-241-95950-3 (9780241959503)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
E-Book
02/2013
1st Edition
Penguin Books Ltd
€9.49
Available for download
Person
Helga Weiss was born in Prague in 1929. Her father Otto was employed in the state bank in Prague and her mother Irena was a dressmaker. Of the 15,000 children brought to Terezin and later deported to Auschwitz, only 100 survived the Holocaust. Helga was one of them. On her return to Prague she studied art and has become well known for her paintings. The drawings and paintings that Helga made during her time in Terezin, which accompany this diary, were published in 1998 in the book Draw What You See (Zeichne, was Du siehst). She has two children, three grandchildren and lives to this day in the flat where she was born.