The Lost Diary of Rivka Lipszyc: A 14-Year-Old Girl’s Unbroken Faith in the Łódź Ghetto

O God, help me rise,
for on my own I cannot…
Let me not tremble before hardship,
and lift me quickly to stand tall again.

My God! My God, I miss You so deeply,
and I am completely at a loss.
Before Your splendor I kneel in submission,
yearning to be pure — to lessen my flaws.

My dear God, I believe You will help me!

These lines of heartfelt faith were written by Rivka Lipszyc, a 14-year-old Jewish girl, on February 1, 1944, as part of the personal diary she began on October 3, 1943, in the Łódź Ghetto in Poland.

Rivka was born into an observant family — the eldest daughter of Yaakov Aharon and Miriam Lipszyc. When she began her diary, her parents and two brothers had already perished. Left with her 10-year-old sister Tzipora (Tsipka) and three cousins — Esther, Mina, and Chana, she struggled to survive against the Nazi death machine that slowly strangled the life out of the ghetto, ending with its liquidation in the summer of 1944 and the deportation of its remaining inhabitants to extermination camps.

Faith Amid Hunger and Despair

Rivka’s diary, written through the eyes of a teenage girl, portrays the daily hardships of ghetto life. Yet its true uniqueness lies in the way it reveals her inner struggle through the prism of faith — her unbroken attachment to God, despite unbearable physical suffering, hunger, and despair.

Her words reveal a young girl filled with spiritual resilience — convinced that salvation would come from Heaven. This trust gave her the strength to endure and to find meaning even in torment.

“Always and everywhere I can rely on Him,” she wrote on February 2, 1944, “but… I must also do my part, because nothing happens by itself… Yet I know that God will help me! Ah, how good it is that I am a Jew, and how good that I was taught to love God…”

“I Laugh at the Whole World — Because I Believe”

“And here it is Friday again! How quickly time flies! But to where? What do we even know? What awaits us in the future? I ask in fear — and also with a teenager’s curiosity.

Maybe, after all, there is an answer — a great one: God and the Torah! Father God and Mother Torah! They are our parents — all-powerful, all-knowing, eternal! What tremendous strength!
Compared to that, I am a tiny creature, invisible even through a microscope…

But what does it matter? Ah, I laugh at the whole world — I, the poor Jewish girl from the ghetto, who doesn’t even know what tomorrow will bring — I laugh at the whole world because I have support,
because I have the great, immense support of faith. Because I believe! And that makes me stronger, richer, and worth more than others. God, I thank You so much!” (February 11, 1944)

“Thank You, God, for the Gift of Faith”

“Many people have already wondered — for what, why all this?
And slowly, little by little, they lost their faith, lost the will to live…
Ah, how terrible that is! Therefore I thank God threefold, even fourfold, that I believe — that He gave me the ability to believe.
Without it, I too would have lost the desire to live… Be patient — with God’s help, everything will be good.” (February 12, 1944)

“Therefore I Am a Jew — to Believe and to Hope”

“The only thing that still gives me strength is the hope that things won’t always be this way, that I am still young, and perhaps one day something will come of me — that I will be able to do something.

I must have hope. That is why I am a Jew — to believe and to hope.
I hope this hope rests on a strong foundation. God, bring that time soon.” (March 29, 1944)

Rivka Never Lost the “Image of God” Within Her

For reasons unknown, Rivka’s diary ends abruptly on April 12, 1944.
In August 1944, she, her sister, and her cousins were deported to Auschwitz. Tzipka failed the selection and was sent to the gas chambers. Rivka and her cousins endured further horror — in Auschwitz, in a women’s labor camp near Gross-Rosen, and finally on the infamous death march to Bergen-Belsen, where they arrived utterly exhausted and near death.

Bergen-Belsen was liberated by British forces in April 1945. Chana died on the day of liberation. There Rivka was separated from her cousins Esther and Mina, who were transferred to Sweden for medical recovery. Rivka’s condition was critical. Though Mina testified that her cousin died in the camp, later historical research suggests that Rivka may have survived several more months and was transferred to a displaced persons hospital in Niendorf, near the Baltic Sea — where her trail disappears.

The Miracle of the Diary’s Survival

Rivka’s fate remains unknown, but her diary miraculously escaped oblivion. Carried with her to Auschwitz, it was found in the spring of 1945 among the ashes of the crematoria by Dr. Zinaida Berzovskaya, a Soviet doctor who accompanied the Red Army liberators. She kept the diary sealed in an envelope. More than five decades later, after her death, her granddaughter discovered it among her belongings and donated it to the Holocaust Center of Northern California.

Amazingly, the diary’s 112 densely written pages survived in a legible state, allowing scholars to painstakingly decipher Rivka’s handwriting and identify her. Researchers eventually located her surviving cousins — Esther Burstein and Mina Boyer (née Lipszyc) — who had built large, thriving families.

“I feel deep sorrow that I never met Rivka,” writes Hadassah Halamish, Mina’s daughter. “I’m sure we would have shared a common language. I learned from her how one can — and must — live under any condition. Even in the unimaginable darkness of Nazi occupation, Rivka never lost the image of God within her. She drew strength from her faith in the Creator, from the Torah, and from a spiritual life that infused her daily existence. She understood that eternal life is rooted in the spirit.”