the Diary of Mary Berg: Growing Up in Warsaw Ghetto 75th Anniversary Edition

She was just fifteen when Hitler entered Poland. She survived four years of Nazi terror. Mary Berg's diary is the first eye-witness account ever published of life in the Warsaw Ghetto. On her fifteenth birthday, as the German army tightens its grip on Warsaw, Mary Berg begins writing her diary. She does not yet know that by the time she has filled twelve small notebooks she will have endured four years of Nazi terror and recorded in vivid detail some of the most important events of the twentieth century. From the siege of Warsaw to the final, brutal suppression of the Ghetto Uprising, she documents the plight of the refugees, the life of the nouveaux riches, the forced conscription, the deportations, and the heroism of the resistance fighters who rose up against German oppression. Rescued with her family through an allied prisoner exchange, Mary smuggled out of Warsaw the diary she had begun four years earlier. In doing so, she brought to light one of the most incredible documents of the Second World War – the uniquely personal story of a life-loving girl’s encounter with unparalleled human suffering, and an extraordinary insight into one of the darkest chapters of history. Mary Berg was fifteen when the German army poured into Poland in 1939. She survived four years of Nazi terror, and managed to keep a diary throughout. This astonishing, vivid portrayal of life inside the Warsaw Ghetto ranks with the most significant documents of the Second World War. Mary Berg candidly chronicles not only the daily deprivations and mass deportations, but also the resistance and resilience of the inhabitants, their secret societies, and the youth at the forefront of the fight against Nazi terror. Above all The Diary of Mary Berg is a uniquely personal story of a life-loving girl’s encounter with unparalleled human suffering, and offers an extraordinary insight into one of the darkest chapters of human history.