Renia's Diary

A Holocaust Journal

By: Elizabeth Bellak, Renia Spiegel, Sarah Durand, Deborah Lipstadt

Narrated by: Ann Richardson

Length: 12 hrs and 53 mins

Publisher's summary

A New York Times best seller

A USA Today best seller

The long-hidden diary of a young Polish woman's life during the Holocaust, translated for the first time into English

Renia Spiegel was born in 1924 to an upper-middle class Jewish family living in Southeastern Poland, near what was at that time the border with Romania. At the start of 1939, Renia began a diary. "I just want a friend. I want somebody to talk to about my everyday worries and joys. Somebody who would feel what I feel, who would believe me, who would never reveal my secrets. A human being can never be such a friend and that’s why I have decided to look for a confidant in the form of a diary." And so begins an extraordinary document of an adolescent girl’s hopes and dreams. By the fall of 1939, Renia and her younger sister, Elizabeth (née Ariana), were staying with their grandparents in Przemysl, a city in the south, just as the German and Soviet armies invaded Poland. Cut off from their mother, who was in Warsaw, Renia and her family were plunged into war.

Like Anne Frank, Renia’s diary became a record of her daily life as the Nazis spread throughout Europe. Renia writes of her mundane school life, her daily drama with best friends, falling in love with her boyfriend, Zygmund, as well as the agony of missing her mother, separated by bombs and invading armies. Renia had aspirations to be a writer, and the diary is filled with her poignant and thoughtful poetry. When she was forced into the city’s ghetto with the other Jews, Zygmund is able to smuggle her out to hide with his parents, taking Renia out of the ghetto, but not, ultimately to safety. The diary ends in July 1942, completed by Zygmund, after Renia is murdered by the Gestapo.

Renia's Diary has been translated from the original Polish, and includes a preface, afterword, and notes by her surviving sister, Elizabeth Bellak. An extraordinary historical document, Renia Spiegel survives through the beauty of her words and the efforts of those who loved her and preserved her legacy.

©2019 Text copyright Elizabeth Bellak; English translation copyright Anna Blasiak and Marta Dziurosz; Introduction copyright Deborah E. Lipstadt (P)2019 Macmillan Audio

Faith, Hope & Love is captured in a diary of a girl as war came to Poland

Renia’s Diary: A Holocaust Journal Is a diary of a teen-age girl who’s heart and unending faith in God and her mom, hope for her family and friends to be safe, happy and love for a boy that filled her heart completely!

Unlike many books that spotlight certain people or events later in the war that were horrific at the hands of the Nazi; Renia’s Diary shows how it is possible safeguard your heart, hopes and dreams even in the face of evil.

It is also a celebration of youth, a time of innocence, joy, concerns, first love, first kisses and the the sorrow living apart from those she loved.

It is also a book of over 60 poems weaved throughput and within the thoughts written within.

Renia’s faith, hopes and dreams were alive in spite of the world beginning to fall apart around her. It is also a “time capsule” of Reina’s heart and beauty now revealed, during a time when the world again, turns to extremes of hate, division, fear and conflict.

May the beauty of her words inspire you to excel in faith, hope and love!

A young girl’s life in her own words

I wasn’t sure I could keep listening as the majority of the book is indeed a diary. But Renia also wrote some beautiful poems and could have been a renowned writer if her life had not been taken during the war. The performance really brought her to life. It’s a miracle that her diary was given to her family by the man she so loved and dreamed of marrying.

This is a sweet diary

About a teenager during the war. This does not have much historical information which I was hoping was included.

Deeply touching and talented literary piece.

Such a talented girl with wonderful so positive personality! Turns out that she wrote deep and lovely poetry. The diary is written with a very smooth and entertaining language. Most of the diary is devoted to the world of a typical teenager and it is amazing how it feels like it could be a contemporary girl living in our times, despite that she indeed lived through 3 very different countries and regimes in her short lifetime. Even Nazi occupation and persecution of Jews seemed distant background compared to her love story until it engulfs her. If you get bored by overwhelming teenage drama, skip to July 1942. That is when her world began to crumple. The end of the diary is shocking as I cannot believe how easily some senseless Nazi soldier put an end to this wonderful person, to the world of the lively exuberance, love and poetry...
This reminds us that beauty is fragile in this world...
This book also has additional chapters written by her surviving sister Arianka which give us a complementary perspective on some of the events described in the diary and also the life stories of some of the main people around Renia who survived the Holocaust. Their stories are also very amazing. And she is right: the Past continues living in us and let part of it live also in you...

Touching and Tragic

Filled with the poetry of a young girls heart, this is an Innocent journey that comes to a tragic end. The most compelling parts being the entries of Zygmund and ne'e Ariana.

This is not an Ann Frank retelling

This is very much a young girl's diary. It has all the hopes and dreams you would expect in a diary, but to listen and remember that this was during a horrific time in the world, makes you think.

It is a reminder how day to day life moves on no matter what is happening. Renia's heart break of not seeing her mother, her feeling for a boy, and even petty argument with classmates don't stop just because a war was at her home.

I know I for one will forever stop and think about the real victims in any war. That is the people. It's the people who tend to be forgotten. No matter if the war is "just" or not, it's the ordinary people that suffer and half to keep going.

Renia's Diary reminds us that we all need to remember we are all human. We are all basically the same, we should focus on that, instead of our differences.

Dr. Seuss meets the Holocaust

This Book is extremely hard to listen to because the child like narrator and the constant poems in the book drives me nuts. In the first two hours there were rhyming poems every 5 to 10 minutes.

Heartfelt

We must never ever forget and we must never ever let the evil acts be repeated not now Today is now a time to remember and learn the the horror and terror did happen stop denying it.

I thought it was very good and I appreciate it!

I thought the story was very good and I appreciate being able to get to know of Renia,of her thoughts and poems in her diary!

Thoughtfull, sad.

God bless Renia, talented girl, which brought to us with an excellent narrator. thinking of her and so many other girls who were killed like her, is overwhelming.