Born in eastern Poland in 1924 to a middle-class family, Renia Spiegel faced a cruel fate. A young girl filled with eagerness to face life and acquired the ability to describe the world around her and her feelings through the beauty of poetry, was denied a future with one bullet at the age of 18. Reina began her diary in a time of great despair when she was just fifteen, looking for an outlet to write her thoughts. She begins her diary with “I just want a friend.” This entails that this diary began as a confidant and was never meant to become a piece of memorabilia.
For over 30 years the Sydney Jewish Museum has been collecting memorabilia from survivors of the Holocaust to draw attention to the 6 million Jews who died in the Holocaust. Reina Spiegel's diary is one of the many pieces of …show more content…
Through Reina’s life story, we can see how teenagers choose to live through this time. They were captivated by their emotions such as love, agony, and excitement. For example “I’m really at a loss for words, so just picture silence, greenery, May, sunset and fireworks, and the two of us, in love” highlights how involved Reina was but also provides her perspective of the world where she looked to find the happy things in life and focus on them. Moreover, her diary is also a firsthand experience of the ghettos and how people look to escape and hide. It allows us a glimpse of what each family within the ghetto did differently to try and secure their lives. Through her life we see how people responded differently to the persecution of Jews and how some chose to fight and have themselves killed and left on the streets or chose to hide and find solitude in the dark; an act of resistance or survival. In doing so, we come to understand the profound impact of the Holocaust on the lives of those who lived through it, as well as its lasting legacy for future
For over 30 years the Sydney Jewish Museum has been collecting memorabilia from survivors of the Holocaust to draw attention to the 6 million Jews who died in the Holocaust. Reina Spiegel's diary is one of the many pieces of …show more content…
Through Reina’s life story, we can see how teenagers choose to live through this time. They were captivated by their emotions such as love, agony, and excitement. For example “I’m really at a loss for words, so just picture silence, greenery, May, sunset and fireworks, and the two of us, in love” highlights how involved Reina was but also provides her perspective of the world where she looked to find the happy things in life and focus on them. Moreover, her diary is also a firsthand experience of the ghettos and how people look to escape and hide. It allows us a glimpse of what each family within the ghetto did differently to try and secure their lives. Through her life we see how people responded differently to the persecution of Jews and how some chose to fight and have themselves killed and left on the streets or chose to hide and find solitude in the dark; an act of resistance or survival. In doing so, we come to understand the profound impact of the Holocaust on the lives of those who lived through it, as well as its lasting legacy for future