Sept 19th 1942
'Mother lies on her mattress all day long; she is so starved that she just cannot move. Anne [my sister] is like a shadow and my father is terribly thin, just skin and bones. I just grit my teeth when the gnawing feeling in my stomach begins. At night I begin to wait for next morning, when we are given four ounces of bread and the bitter water that is called coffee. Then I wait for lunch at noon, when we bought our first soup, a dish of hot water with a few grains of kasha. Then again I wait impatiently for the evening, when we get our second dish of hot water with a potato or beet. The days are endless, and the nights even more so, and full of nightmares. The shootings continue, hundreds of people perish daily. The ghetto is drenched in blood. People are constantly marching along Dzielna Street towards the Umschlagaplatz on Stwki Street. No Job or occupation is a complete protection any longer. Recently even the families of those employed have been deported, mostly the women and children.
A few weeks ago the Nazis began to round up the wives and children of the men working at Toebens and Schultz. Those who are not working are ruthlessly dragged away. Parents now take their children with them to work, or hide them in some hole.
Food is now cheaper in the ghetto. Recently a pound of bread cost forty zlotys, but now it only costs twenty zlotys. There are fewer mouths to feed.'
An entry from 'The Diary of Mary Berg', first published in 1944 in New York and still a remarkable document and monument to human durability in the face of fierce odds against survival.
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