Rutka Laskier - Documenting Horrible Expectations & Unrealized Longings
Rutka Laskier (born ca. 1929 – died 1943) was a Jewish teenager living in the Jewish ghetto of the southern Polish city of Będzin during World War II. In 1943, at the age of 14, she wrote a 60-page diary in the Polish language, chronicling several months of her life under Nazi rule, which was not released to the public until 2007.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rutka_Laskier
“I simply can’t believe that one day I will be allowed to leave this house without the yellow star. Or even that this war will end one day. If this happens I will probably lose my mind from joy,” she wrote on Feb. 5, 1943.
“The little faith I used to have has been completely shattered. If God existed, He would have certainly not permitted that human beings be thrown alive into furnaces, and the heads of little toddlers be smashed with gun butts or shoved into sacks and gassed to death.”
“I think my womanhood has awoken in me. That means, yesterday when I was taking a bath and the water stroked my body, I longed for someone’s hands to stroke me,” she wrote. ” I didn’t know what it was, I have never had such sensations until now.”
Laskier is believed to have died upon her arrival in August 1943 at the Auschwitz concentration camp.
On a personal note, I don’t know all the reasons why, but I find it touching and telling that Rutka, capitalized the pronoun “he” when referring to her God, even after she had lost her faith in Him.
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Here are 5 related Anne Frank posts (click on the thumbnails to see the posts):
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I really love your blog…Thoughtful, insightful and full of delightful imagery that makes me feel. Blessings!!
Thank you for the kind thoughts
Thank you for the blog. I have a teen daughter, and have had three other daughters, now grown. The Rutka story touches me deeply.
Your last statement in the Rutka Laskier piece says, “…I find it touching and telling that Rutka, capitalized the pronoun “he” when referring to her God, even after she had lost her faith in Him.”
I’m an atheist writer, I copyedit for a secular magazine, and I also capitalize He when referring to God; not because I believe in Him in the least, but because that is the grammatically correct way to do it.
When the brutal ways of religion finally diminish, as is my fervent hope, possibly the so-called proper way to write will change also.
Warmly,
Bill
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OneMoreOption: Thank you Bill for your thoughtfulness and contribution.