Showcase 13

Diary entry of Abraham Lewin about the mass deportations from the Warsaw Ghetto, August 1942

1.

“Since Friday, the loudspeakers in the Ghetto have been cut off and the newspapers have stopped reaching us. Newspapers are not allowed to be brought inside the Ghetto; guards confiscate them all at the gates. Thus, we are in a prison of a special kind. There is a danger that at any time they might lead us to slaughter. We have no access to a single piece of news from the other side of the wall. Will we be given a chance to survive till morning when the rays of freedom that tempt us with their powerful light hit the earth again? How to live? You never know if you manage to stay alive till the evening comes.”

Abraham Lewin, Journal entry from August 24, 1942

2.

“There were rumors, one more horrifying than the other, that we were going to be expelled from Warsaw, somewhere to the outskirts. Nobody believed how come that it could be even possible? From Warsaw, the city which has been a hub and the birthplace of several generations of Jews? The city with 400,000 Jewish inhabitants? To expel? People convinced themselves that it would surely affect the homeless, the resettled from other towns, but never, in no case, the regular residents. And then it started.”

Natan Smolar, Memoirs, spring/summer of 1942