Renia’s Diary
by Renia Spiegel with Elizabeth Bellak
Renia Spiegel was a young girl from an upper-middle class Jewish family living on an estate in Stawki, Poland, near what was at that time the border with Romania. In the summer of 1939, Renia and her sister Elizabeth (née Ariana) were visiting their grandparents in Przemysl, right before the Germans invaded Poland. Like Anne Frank, Renia recorded her days in her beloved diary. She also filled it with beautiful original poetry. Her diary records how she grew up, fell in love, and was rounded up by the invading Nazis and forced to move to the ghetto in Przemsyl with all the other Jews. By luck, Renia’s boyfriend Zygmund was able to find a tenement for Renia to hide in with his parents and took her out of the ghetto. This is all described in the Diary, as well as the tragedies that befell her family and her ultimate fate in 1942, as written in by Zygmund on the Diary’s final page. Renia’s Diary is a significant historical and psychological document. The raw, yet beautiful account depicts Renia’s angst over the horrors going on around her. It has been translated from the original Polish, with notes included by her surviving sister, Elizabeth Bellak.
Renia’s Diary is the real diary of a teenage girl in Poland during WWII and was a must-read book for me since I included it in my Nonfiction November Top Picks post from last year. While I’m no stranger to nonfiction personal accounts from Holocaust survivors, reading a diary kept during the actual ongoings of the war is a very unique experience I’ve only had when reading The Diary of a Young Girl from Anne Frank. Real-time diaries offer a completely different perspective on the war. As heartbreakingly detailed as memoirs are, they are told from a distance and with the knowledge of what’s going to happen they didn’t have in the moment, while diaries capture the emotions of the moment in the moment. There’s something surreal about reading the words of these young girls.
It feels wrong to “review” the real, deeply personal diary of a real young woman who did not survive the war. I’d like to think of this as less of a review and more of me just sharing my experience of reading Renia’s words.
Reading Renia’s Diary was devastating. In so many ways, this diary was not what I’d expected it to be. I’d expected a very detailed account of what was happening around Renia in terms of the war, but Renia actually writes very little about what’s going around her and focuses more on her own day-to-day experiences and her deeply felt emotions. To compare it to Anne Frank’s diary (as it’s the only similar book I’ve read), I’d say this diary was much less comprehensive in painting a full picture of the environment she was in, the political happenings, and the general tone of life for herself and those around her.
When I first started reading Renia’s Diary, I felt almost like an intruder into this teenage girl’s most private thoughts and emotions—it reads so much like any girl’s diary, as opposed to a wartime account, that it was a bit disconcerting, especially when she actually wrote about how the diary was only for her, that it was solely there to make her happy as a personal and distinctly not political thing. The fact that I was reading a real girl’s diary seemed incredibly important. Almost as soon as I started reading Renia’s Diary, I was struck by the significance of reading this. These were her real-life experiences and her words and her poetry—and as obvious as it may be to state that, it was something I was acutely aware of while reading and something that I felt was special.
While it wasn’t exactly the type of diary I’d expected, I felt very close to Renia throughout my time reading her diary. She writes about her school life—friendships and the excitement and apprehension about going to dances—as well as the difficulties of her living situation. She’d been sent to live with her grandparents and was separated from her mother and father, who were separated from each other. She struggled with this every day, missing her mother terribly and often writing about how she felt she could deal with anything if only her mother was with her. She ended almost all of her entries with “You will help me, Buluś (her mother) and God,” like the whole entry had been a prayer. A lot of the diary is focused on Renia’s boyfriend, Zygmund, and their relationship from its early beginnings to every doubt and insecurity she had, to anger and irritation and the all consuming way she loved him. However, Renia still writes about bigger things like how she was going to be viewed as inferior when she had to wear a white armband to identify her as Jewish and when she had to stop going to school and when fears of the ghetto affected everyone she knew. There were several parts that were emotional to read, parts when she spoke to God through her diary and prayed to be spared, times when she expressed how badly she wanted to live. It was difficult reading those parts knowing her fate. Reading the happier times of her diary—her zest for life and optimism, her hopes and dreams and plans—was tainted by an intense sadness for me, knowing that she would not live past 18. The whole reading experience was a very emotional one.
You can’t help but like Renia and reading her voice. She writes with such depth and had such articulate ways of describing her own emotions and what was happening around her. She loved writing poems and filled this diary with so many. They provide such an intimate look into how she thought because it wasn’t just her speaking plainly, it was how she carefully chose words and crafted an overall sense within these poems—it was thoughtful commentary and deeply experienced personal musings. It was wonderful to read her artistic portrayal of what was happening. I believe the translator made an effort to keep the original feel and spirit of the poetry because many of them rhymed in English. Renia was also funny and there were several times when her sense of humor made me laugh a bit.
Because of how rooted this diary was in Renia’s emotions and thoughts, sometimes her mentions of the difficult times of the war and how it was coming to her doorstep felt quite sudden and startling. You could be reading about her relationship with Zygmund and then suddenly there’d be mention of how she was taking part in female military training. It was stark, but I appreciated the notes written by her sister that often gave some context or expanded a bit on what Renia meant. I also enjoyed that Renia’s sister’s notes weren’t just factual. Elizabeth included pieces of her own experiences.
I knew the end of this book would come abruptly and I knew what would happen to Renia but I still found it devastating. Renia treated this diary almost like a friend and called it her soul’s mirror. Though it doesn’t give as much information about the world around her as I’d expected and maybe would’ve liked, this diary served as an escape from the difficult world Renia had to live in. It was a place she could focus on her friendships and her boyfriend and the things that filled her life with joy and sorrow, where she could turn away from the world and express herself fully. While it doesn’t give readers a full idea of the political happenings of the time, it gives us an idea of what it was like to be a teenager in this area of Poland during a crucial and frightening time. And it gives us an idea of what it was like to be Renia, one of the millions of victims of the Holocaust who should never be forgotten.
By some strange coincidence in timing, I finished this book just days ago and this review is being posted on July 30th—the anniversary of Renia being murdered in a Polish ghetto. It’s been 78 years since Renia’s death but this diary will keep her voice alive and will help people understand what it was like to live in her world. I’m so glad Renia’s sister decided to share Renia’s diary with the world–it was a privilege to read.
It feels wrong to give a rating to someone’s diary but I thoroughly enjoyed getting to know Renia and reading her words and I recommend it to everyone.
Thanks for reading,
Madison