The Diary of David Sierakowiak

 

 

David Sierakowiak

David’s diary begins on 28 June 1939, just before his fifteenth birthday, and comes to an abrupt end on 15 April 1943. David himself died later in August 1943, “presumably” of tuberculosis; however, many others in the ghetto (including his sister) would have to endure another full year of torment before the ghetto’s final liquidation and the deportation of the remaining Jews to Auschwitz.

 

Although we don’t know why David stopped keeping his diary during the last four months of his life, the entries that he did write reveal the harshness and suffering the ghetto inhabitants faced almost daily. The text presents the reader with a sombre look into what it meant to exist in a community ravaged by never-ending starvation, constant fear, terrible sickness, and inevitable death.

 

In similar fashion to Anne Frank’s Diary, with which David’s diary is often compared, his writing presents events within the context of the times, and also offers the viewpoint of someone who was there when the events really happened, as seen through the eyes of a young boy desperately struggling to become a man.