The Diary of Petr Ginz, 1941-1942
Michelangelo in Ravensbrück: One Woman's War against the Nazis
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Two Holocaust chronicles show resilience of the human spirit
REVIEW BY ALISON HOOD More than 60 years after the Holocaust, strong voices, both living and dead, still tell the stories of a time the human race must never forget. The words of Anne Frank, Irène Némirovsky, Elie Weisel and countless others resonate—a resolute chorus that speaks in counterpoint to those who attempt to deny Nazi atrocities. Two books, one newly discovered and the other released for the first time in the U.S., refute such propagandizing by recounting the horrors of Nazi genocide. Young victim as witness The notebooks and artwork of Holocaust victim Petr Ginz lay undiscovered in an old house in Prague for 60 years. In 2003, after the explosion of the space shuttle Columbia, it came to light that Israeli astronaut Ilan Ramon had carried with him a drawing ("Moon Landscape") by young Petr—an act intended to commemorate the Holocaust victims. Not long after a man came forward wishing to sell some old writings and drawings—all by Petr Ginz. Edited by Ginz's sister, Chava Pressburger, The Diary of Petr Ginz, 1941-1942 is the record of a Jewish schoolboy's daily life in Prague while it is under Nazi control. Fourteen-year-old Petr, an irrepressible prodigy who excelled in painting, drawing and writing, kept a straightforward, calm record of his days, including his schooling, family life, and the personal indignities and work (cleaning typewriters) forced upon him and his family by Hitler's edicts. Embellished with his wry poetry and his stark, intense linocuts and drawings, the diary entries are short, many no more than a few sentences, but they reveal volumes about the Nazis' draconian methods: "Tuesday, March 3, 1942: In the afternoon in town. There are ordinances everywhere saying that it is not allowed to wash Jewish laundry." As the strictures placed upon the Jews became tighter, there was an escalation of "transports," moving the Jewish populace to the ghetto of Thereisienstadt before transfer to Nazi death camps in occupied Poland. Petr's diary ends in August 1942, two months before he was separated forever from his family and sent to Thereisienstadt, where he would live (and start a secret rebel newspaper), work and tirelessly study for two years. At the end of that time 16-year-old Petr was taken to Auschwitz and exterminated—one of many lives prematurely ended, but a voice not fully stilled. Of Petr's determination to bear witness, novelist Jonathan Safran Foer writes in the book's introduction, "Surrounded by death, and facing his own, Petr put words on paper. Given his unprecedented situation, his words were unprecedented. He was creating new language. He was creating life." Polish resistance Michelangelo in Ravensbrück: One Woman's War against the Nazis is a detailed record of Hitler's command, written between 1945 and 1946 by Countess Karolina Lanckoronska, a Polish-Catholic aristocrat with an indomitable will and a formidable intellect. In a memoir written in no-nonsense, reportorial style, this art professor tells of her activities and imprisonment for what the Nazis called her "troublesome" interference with the Reich's rule of terror. With her wealth and connections, the countess could have escaped to Switzerland at the occupation's outset. But, an ardent patriot and dedicated teacher, she vowed to remain and continue her everyday life—as well as to join the underground, all the while working to provide food and support to those in Nazi jails and prisons. Her head-on dealings with the SS and Gestapo, especially a perilous exchange with Nazi henchman Hans Krüger (in which he reveals a mass murder of Polish professors), land her in the notorious Ravensbrück concentration camp. There, she bolsters the women inmates (especially the "rabbits," women subjected to medical experimentation) with nursing care and her extra rations of food. She also offers them sustenance for the spirit—lectures on art and history that lift their vision beyond the high prison walls. Lanckoronska spent five years in captivity before her release, brought about by the intervention of Carl Burckhardt, head of the International Red Cross. She lived out her days in exile in Rome, working to tell the truths of war and celebrate Polish culture. Her almost dispassionate telling of the suffering she witnessed makes for heartbreaking, often horrifying reading, but this is reading we must do, especially in our own troubling times.
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