By
– February 15, 2012
Rutka’s Notebook is the diary of a Jewish teenager living in Bedzin, Poland in early 1943. Sixty years after the young author, Rutka, hid her diary, it was retrieved by a friend and subsequently published. The book covers the four months prior to Ruthke’s deportation to Auschwitz. Through the young author’s eyes we are witness to the horrors and brutality delivered by the Nazis during their occupation of Poland. Rutka reveals her life in her notebook, in both actuality and raw emotion. We are drawn in by Rutka’s typical teenage emotional conflicts — love, anger, jealousy — at the same time as we are buffeted by the brutality and horrendous cruelty of her Nazi tormentors. This book is unique in its format. Eschewing footnotes, the publishers intermingle photographs and explanatory text with relevant diary passages. The diary is a worthwhile read for mature students thirteen years of age and older, especially for those with some Holocaust study background.
Naomi Kramer is a retired reading consultant teacher who developed curriculum for using literature to educate children and adults in the history of the Holocaust. She is a docent and educator at the Holocaust Memorial and Tolerance Education Center of Nassau County.