Expand / Collapse search
☰

Diary found in Auschwitz rubble sheds light on daily struggles, now on display in Skokie

By FOX 32 News
Published  May 30, 2023 1:20pm CDT
World
FOX 32 Chicago

Illinois Holocaust Museum exhibit features diary of girl in Nazi ghetto

Amanda Friedeman from the Illinois Holocaust Museum talks about their new exhibit which showcases the diary of 14-year-old girl who was held in a Nazi ghetto.

SKOKIE, Ill. - A diary found in the rubble of Auschwitz is now part of a powerful exhibit in Illinois.

It describes daily life in a Nazi-controlled ghetto in Poland through the eyes of teenager Rywka Lipszyc.

Amanda Friedeman, the associate director of education from the Illinois Holocaust Museum, joined Good Day Chicago Tuesday morning to talk about it.

"It's an incredible document, as you said. It tells not only of the incredible hardships of life in the Łódź Ghetto, of starvation, of lack of resources, of the constant threat of peril and deportation and death, but also of hope and of attempts to achieve normal life and to maintain some semblance of the familiar," Friedeman said.

SUBSCRIBE TO FOX 32 ON YOUTUBE

"But most importantly, it gives us an incredible picture of a teenage girl who despite everything she's experiencing, is a normal teenage girl. And just her humanity, and her spats with her siblings and the challenges of just being a teenager let alone a teenager in such extraordinary circumstances is for me one of the most compelling things about this diary."

The exhibit is now open at the Illinois Holocaust Museum in Skokie.