Dawid Sierakowiak diary
Extent and Medium
oversize box
1
Creator(s)
- Dawid Sierakowiak
Biographical History
Dawid Sierakowiak (1924-1943) was born on July 25, 1924 in Łódź, Poland to Majlech Sierakowiak (?-1942?), a cabinetmaker, and Sura Sierakowiak (?-1942?). He had one sister, Nadzia (?-1944). Dawid was a student in a private Jewish Gymnasium in Łódź, where he was on a scholarship. In 1939 they were forced into the Łódź ghetto. In August 1943 Dawid died in the Łódź ghetto of tuberculosis. His mother was deported to Chełmno concentration camp and his sister was deported to Auschwitz concentration camp in 1944. They both perished. His father died in the ghetto.
Archival History
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Acquisition
Funding Note: The accessibility of this collection was made possible by the generous donors to our crowdfunded Save Their Stories campaign.
The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum acquired the Dawid Sierakowiak diary (numbers 1, 3, and 5) from Konrad Turowski's family in 1999.
Scope and Content
The collection includes three diaries written in the Łódź ghetto by Dawid Sierakowiak. The diary describes horrific conditions of the Łódź ghetto under the Nazi occupation and Chaim Rumkowski leadership. In his diaries Dawid chronicles political situations, social conditions, family relationships, and his physical and emotional deterioration. He writes in grief about the deportation of his mother; his father's death, disease, exhaustion and starvation; his little sister Nadzia's sufferings; and his own eventual loss of strength and decline towards death. The writing starts on Wednesday, June 28, 1939, and continues through Thursday, April 15, 1943. Dawid died on August 8, 1943, two weeks after his nineteen birthday and four months after the last of his surviving notebooks broke off with the recognition: "There is really no way out of this."
System of Arrangement
The Dawid Sierakowiak diary is arranged as single series.
People
- Sierakowiak, Dawid, 1924-1943.
Subjects
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)--Personal narratives.
- Jewish ghettos--Poland--Łódź.
- World War, 1939-1945--Poland--Łódź.
- Łódź (Poland)
Genre
- Diaries.
- Document