"How Wonderful That I Am Jewish": The Diary of the Young Girl Rivka Lipschitz from the Lodz Ghetto

"Oh Hashem, help me rise,

for I cannot do it alone...

Make me not tremble from hardship,

and raise my stature swiftly...

My Hashem! Hashem! I miss you so

and am utterly at a loss.

In your glory, I humbly bow,

wanting to be pure! To reduce my flaws!...

My Hashem!

Dear Hashem, I believe you will help me!...

These faith-filled lines of poetry were written by Rivka Lipschitz, a 14-year-old Jewish girl, on February 1, 1944, as part of a personal diary she began writing on October 3, 1943, in the Lodz Ghetto in Poland. Rivka was the eldest daughter in a devout family, the daughter of Yaakov Aharon and Miriam Lipschitz. By the time she began writing, her parents and two siblings were no longer alive, and she was left to struggle alongside her 10-year-old sister Tzipora (Tzipka) and three cousins—Esther, Mina, and Chana—against the Nazi destruction machine, which gradually consumed the lives of the ghetto’s residents until it completely choked them with the liquidation of the ghetto in the summer of 1944, sending the remainder of its inhabitants to extermination camps.

Rivka's diary describes through the eyes of a teenage girl the daily hardships experienced by the ghetto's residents, but its uniqueness lies in how it reveals her coping with the events through the prism of religious faith and her devotion to the Creator, despite the physical suffering, especially the paralyzing hunger. Before our eyes unfolds the figure of a girl filled with faith, believing that salvation from above will come. This reliance provides her with comfort and nearly superhuman strength to continue surviving under impossible conditions while she hopes for redemption. "Always and everywhere I can rely on Him, but... I, too, need to contribute, because nothing will happen by itself... but I know Hashem will help me!" wrote Rivka on February 2, 1944. "Oh, how wonderful that I am Jewish, and how good it is that I was taught to love Hashem..."

"And here comes Friday again!... How quickly time flies!... And to where? What do we already know? What awaits us in the future? I ask with a girl's fear and equal curiosity. And perhaps still? And there is an answer, a great answer: Hashem and the Torah! Father Hashem and Mother Torah! They are our parents! Omnipotent, omniscient, eternal!!! What tremendous power!!! Compared to this, I am a minute creature barely noticeable even under a microscope... but what does it matter...? Ah, I laugh at the whole world, I, the poor Jewish girl from the ghetto, not knowing what will be with me tomorrow... I laugh at the whole world because I have a support, for I have the great, immense support of faith. Because I believe! And so I am stronger, richer, and worth more than others. Hashem, I thank you so!!!..." (Feb. 11, 1944).

"Many people have already wondered why this is, why all this happened, and slowly, gradually lost their faith, lost the will to continue living... oh, that is so terrible!... That is why I thank Hashem threefold and even fourfold for my faith, because without it I, too, like others, would lose the will to live... Be patient, with Hashem's help all will be well" (Feb. 12, 1944).

"The only thing that gives me little strength is the hope that it won't always be like this and that now I am young, and perhaps one day something might come of me, and I will be able to do something. I really must have hope. That is why I am Jewish, to believe and hope. I hope this hope rests on a strong foundation. Hashem, bring this time speedily" (March 29, 1944).

"Rivka Never Lost the Divine Image Within Her"

For unclear reasons, Rivka's diary abruptly ends on April 12, 1944. In August, she was deported with her younger sister and cousins to Auschwitz. Tzipka could not survive the selection and was sent to the gas chambers. Rivka and her three cousins continued to suffer in Auschwitz, in a women's labor camp near Gross-Rosen concentration camp where they were sent, and during the infamous death march to Bergen-Belsen, where they arrived in complete exhaustion and on the brink of death.

Bergen-Belsen was liberated by British soldiers in April 1945. Chana died on the day of liberation, and here Rivka parted ways from Esther and Mina, who were taken to Sweden for medical treatment and recovery. Rivka's condition was critical, but despite Mina's testimony that her cousin died in the camp, historical research in recent years has indicated that Rivka survived for several more months and was transferred to the transit camp Lübeck, and from there to the Neindorf hospital by the Baltic Sea, where her trail vanished.

Thus, Rivka's fate remains a mystery, but by a miracle, the diary she wrote was saved from oblivion. The diary, which was taken with her on the journey to Auschwitz, was discovered in the spring of 1945 among the ashes of the crematoria by Dr. Zinaida Brazovskaya, a Soviet doctor accompanying the Red Army soldiers who liberated Auschwitz. The doctor kept the diary in an envelope, and more than five decades later, after her death, her granddaughter found the diary among her belongings and transferred it to the Holocaust Center in Northern California. Miraculously, the 112 densely packed pages of the diary were preserved in a condition that allowed, with painstaking effort, the deciphering of the handwriting and the revealing of the author's identity—Rivka Lipschitz. Subsequently, the researchers working on this rare document were able to contact Rivka's cousins, who over the years had built large and flourishing families—Esther Borshtin and Mina Boyar nee Lipschitz.

"I feel great sadness that I did not have the merit to know Rivka", writes Hadassah Khalmish, Mina’s daughter. "I am sure I would have found a common language with her. I feel I learned from her how one can and should live in any situation. Even in impossible life situations, under Nazi occupation, Rivka never lost the divine image within her. She drew strength from her faith in Hashem, from the Torah, and from the spiritual life that accompanies life's practical aspects, internalizing the understanding that eternal life is rooted in spirit".

* The quotes from the diary and Hadassah Khalmish's words are taken from the book "Writing Until the End"—Rivka's diary in its Hebrew edition, published by Mosad Harav Kook, edited by Esther Farbstein, Michal Unger, and Hadassah Khalmish.