Celia Gurevitch Jewish Community Library

67 years ago today, in 1941, the massacres of the Jews of Vilna ended, leaving 32,000 Jews dead. Yitskhok Rudachevski‘s “Diary of the Vilna ghetto” covers this period as it was written between June 1941 – April 1943. The short version of the story of his short life can be read here. For the longer versino I recommend his own book. He was only fifteen when he was killed. David Patterson at Novelguide.com explains his relations to his own diary.

Yitskhok’s youth found eloquent expression in his longing for a place in the world; indeed, that is one reason books were so dear to him. The more intense the destruction of the world, the more intense the longing. Seeing how ruined lives paralleled ruined families, homes, and buildings, he cried out, “How much tragedy and anguish is mirrored in every shattered brick, in every dark crack, in every bit of plaster with a piece of wallpaper.” As a natural longing for a sense of place, his longing is also a yearning for nature. He joined a nature group and declared, “We are not cut off from nature in spirit.” And in the spring of 1943, the year of his death, he wrote, “I revel in the spring breeze, catch the spring rays and my heart is full of strange yearning.” Those who have been young know that yearning. Reading Yitskhok’s diary, one realizes that even such yearning was subject to annihilation.