A HIDDEN DIARY
The plot thickens when I find a page my mother wrote in a collective Gabersdorf diary, recently donated to Yad Vashem by a survivor’s family in Australia. I never knew my mother to be a writer and bond with her in a way that eluded us during her lifetime. She was right about not being a victim, even in a camp. Telling her story enabled her to transcend victimhood by becoming the hero of her narrative. She also was the only one who signed her name in Hebrew, spoken by Jews in Palestine, her future home.
(translation of my mother’s diary page)
Yes, unfortunately our reality is gray and grim. We’re in a concentration camp, subjected to the whims of our “honorable” camp ruler. But this will pass just like a nightmare.These thick prison walls will disappear. The smoldering flames of despair will burn out and fade into fleeting sparks. Only these dusty pages will remain and remind you of the terrible tragicomedy playing out within these bleak camp walls.
In memory of our shared misery,
Hela Behira Hocherman, Sosnowiec April 27th, 1942 Gabersdorf
A MIGHTY BAND OF SISTERS
Women’s testimonies have been overlooked in the shaping of mainstream Holocaust history to pander to female tropes of victimhood.
~Zoe Waxman
The diary also contained the names of 60 other Jewish women, mere teenagers during the Holocaust. These pages showed how Jewish girls became sisters, resisters and saboteurs in the camp, forging a vital shield against Nazi brutality, just as they had done through underground Zionist groups in the ghetto. The collective diary is a testament to their defiance, humanity and sisterhood, documenting their singular voices and how their Jewish faith empowered them. Among its treasures is a Haggadah (the Passover Seder text) with the “girls” cast as the slaves, and their lager füher (camp ruler) as pharaoh, as they plead for their own Exodus to the promised land.
©Marisa Fox ~ My Underground Mother 2023