Sierakowiak Diary Extract

“Oh, God, what's going on here? Panic, departures en masse, defeatism” (Sierakowiak). Every day, victims of the Holocaust who resided in ghettos felt the same plunge of fear and confusion as Dawid Sierakowiak. The ghettos were vile places. Hundreds of thousands packed into only a few square miles, not to mention the intemperate Nazis that oppressed Jews at every turn. But a particular group would continue to resist in the shadows. One of these rebels was Sierakowiak, a young man who missed his old life and wanted to return to it more than anything ("Spiritual Resistance during the Holocaust"). Dawid Sierakowiak used unarmed resistance in the Łódź Ghetto to keep his life intact through the horrors of the Holocaust. In the Łódź Ghetto, unarmed

Being thrust into ghetto life as a teenager, Sierakowiak joined the underground resistance movement at a young age like many other Łódź Jews (“Sierakowiak Diary Extract”). He had chronicled his daily experiences in a diary, from political schemes to personal matters: all was covered there (“Sierakowiak Diary Extract”). “The city, abandoned by its institutions and by the police, awaits the imminent arrival of the German army in terror” (Sierakowiak). In this diary, he was free to write about the extremities and wrongdoings of the Nazis with no censorship, being able to show the actual violence committed (“Spiritual Resistance during the Holocaust”). “Some Jews were ordered to stop working, to remove their clothes and stand facing the wall, at which point they were told they'd be shot” (Sierakowiak). Recording their actions was a substantial form of resistance to the Nazis because it exposes them to future generations ("Spiritual Resistance during the Holocaust"). Many other Jews documented ghetto activity in different ways, such as art (“To Bring out the Beauty of Every Child”). But documentation was not the only way that Sierakowiak and the Jews defied the Nazis. He, like many other Jews, participated in group prayers, still having hope that salvation was inevitable (“Sierakowiak Diary Extract”). “All our Jewish neighbors are waiting for a new Chanukah miracle.

Across many people and groups, they all had their way of eluding Nazi rule. No matter the type of resistance, all of these acts were part of a collective movement to defy Hitler and Nazi rule. Dawid Sierakowiak was bold enough to take a risk, and expose the Nazi misconduct for future generations to come, which is sure to halt many conspiracies of the Holocaust being a facade (“Sierakowiak Diary Extract”). The noble efforts of the rebels will never be forgotten and will forever be held in