Rywka Lipszyc

Rywka Lipszyc (pronounced as Rivka Lipshitz; 15 September 1929 – disappeared 10 September 1945) was a Polish-born Jewish diarist and Holocaust survivor. She was deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp followed by a transfer to Gross-Rosen and forced labor at its subcamp in Christianstadt. She was then taken on a death march to Bergen-Belsen, and was liberated there in April 1945. Too ill to be evacuated, she was transferred to a hospital at, where the record of her life ended.

Her diary, composed of 112 pages, was written between 3 October 1943 and 12 April 1944 in the Polish language. Translated to English by Malgorzata Markoff and annotated by Ewa Wiatr, it was published for the first time in the United States in early 2014, some 70 years after it was written.

Life
Rywka was the eldest of four children of Yan Lipszyc and Maria Zelver. Rywka was born in September 1929 in Łódź, Poland. Records show that Rywka lived in Łódź by January 1, 1938. The family was imprisoned at the Nazi ghetto there in April 1940, following the German invasion of Poland. In 1940, whilst going out on a walk, Rywka's father Yan was suddenly beaten by a German officer. Covered in blood, he was taken to a hospital in the ghetto, where he was released two weeks later and reunited with his family. However, as a result of the beatings, he began to suffer from severe head pain, which grew more severe over the months. The pain later grew so severe that he died and was buried on 2 June 1941, in the Łódz Ghetto cemetery, one year after the beatings occurred. After his death and burial, Rywka's mother Maria cared for the children alone. Maria herself died on 8 July 1942 from lung disease and malnutrition. In September 1942, two months later, Rywka's younger brother Abramek and sister Tamarcia were deported to a extermination camp. Rywka and her sister Cipka were then adopted by their paternal aunt Hadassah. In 1943, Hadassah began to suffer from starvation. She died from the cause in July of that same year. After her death, Hadassah's eldest daughter, Estusia (Esther), got custody of Rywka and Cipka, with Minia (Mina) and Chanusia (Hannah) (Hadassah's youngest daughters) helping.

Aftermath
In April 1944, with the Soviet Army being only ninety miles away from Łódz, the Germans began liquidating the ghetto. Rywka, her younger sister Cipka, and her three cousins: Estusia, Minia, and Chanusia were deported by train to Auschwitz. Cipka was gassed immediately upon arrival. After staying for a week in Auschwitz, Rywka and her three cousins were then deported to Gross-Rosen, a labor camp in Poland. In February 1945, Rywka and her three cousins were sent on a death march to Bergen-Belsen in Germany. They were liberated by the Allies there on April 15. From Rywka and her three cousins, only Chanusia did not survive the Holocaust, dying shortly before Bergen-Belsen was liberated. Estusia, Minia, and Rywka were temporarily nursed in a hospital, before being sent to a transit camp in Lübeck, Germany. In July, Estusia and Minia were strong and healthy enough to leave the transit camp. Rywka could not join her cousins and leave with them, because she was gravely ill and weak, to the point, where she was disabled. On 25 July 1945, Rywka was so ill and weak that she was sent to a hospital in. She was registered upon arrival. On 10 September 1945, records show that Rywka was still alive and was nursed in the hospital. It is disputed whether Rywka died or is still alive to date.

The diary
Rywka's diary was unearthed in the ruins of the crematoria at Auschwitz-Birkenau in June 1945 by a Red Army doctor, Zinaida Berezovskaya, who took it with her back to the Soviet Union. She died in 1983. The diary was kept by her son along with other war memorabilia. He died in 1992. Zinaida's granddaughter, on a family visit to Russia, spotted the manuscript and took it with her. Over a decade later in 2008 she contacted the local Holocaust Center in San Francisco. The diary was hidden from the world in relatively good condition before it was offered.

The last entry in the diary contains the following passages written in literary Polish; they were Rywka's final reflections on the beauty of the natural world in the time of sorrow:

The diary, edited by Alexandra Zapruder, and accompanied by essays written by scholar Fred Rosenbaum and Rywka's cousin Hadassa Halamish, was published in English in early 2014 by the Jewish Family and Children's Services of San Francisco Holocaust Center in partnership with Lehrhaus Judaica house of learning in Berkeley, California, and is titled The Diary of Rywka Lipszyc. Rywka Lipszyc is not to be confused with Rywka Lipszyc recorded in the Database of Shoah Victims (1888–1940) who died in the Łódź Ghetto, wife of Yekhiel. The diary was gifted to the family by Dr. Berezovskaya's granddaughter in 2015. It is now stored in Yad Vashem in Jerusalem.