Ponary Diary, 1941-1943: A Bystander's Account of a Mass MurderYale University Press, 2008 M10 1 - 176 pages About sixty thousand Jews from Wilno (Vilnius, Jewish Vilna) and surrounding townships in present-day Lithuania were murdered by the Nazis and their Lithuanian collaborators in huge pits on the outskirts of Ponary. Over a period of several years, Kazimierz Sakowicz, a Polish journalist who lived in the village of Ponary, was an eyewitness to the murder of these Jews as well as to the murders of thousands of non-Jews on an almost daily basis. He chronicled these events in a diary that he kept at great personal risk.Written as a simple account of what Sakowicz witnessed, the diary is devoid of personal involvement or identification with the victims. It is thus a unique document: testimony from a bystander, an “objective” observer without an emotional or a political agenda, to the extermination of the Jews of the city known as “the Jerusalem of Lithuania.”Sakowicz did not survive the war, but much of his diary did. Painstakingly pieced together by Rahel Margolis from scraps of paper hidden in various locations, the diary was published in Polish in 1999. It is here published in English for the first time, extensively annotated by Yitzhak Arad to guide readers through the events at Ponary. |
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Ponary Diary, 1941-1943: A Bystander's Account of a Mass Murder Kazimierz Sakowicz Limited preview - 2005 |
Common terms and phrases
Aktion Aktionen April Armia Krajowa August August 24 base Bolsheviks brought buried carried caught Chazbijewicze child Chozanda clothing condemned dead documents Einsatzgruppen Einsatzkommando escape Estonia Events in Wilno executed Friday German Germans and Lithuanians Gestapo Gestapo agents Grodno highway hiding places individual shots Jankowski Jewish police Jewish women Jews Jews of Wilno Judenrat July July 11 Kazimierz Sakowicz Kiejzik killed Kovno Kruk Kulaskis labor camps later liquidated Lithua Lithuanian police Lukiszki mainly meters Monday morning murdered nians night November October October 25 passenger car Poles policemen Polish underground Ponary prisoners quiet rifle butt road rubles Rudnicka Forest Rudzinski Sakowicz Saturday September September 17 Shaulists shoes shots are fired shouts Sipo soldiers Soviet partisans Soviet Union Swieciany Thursday tion Today took tracks train Tretiak truck arrived Tuesday turned uanians underwear undress vehicle victims village volley wagons Wilno ghetto woman women and children wounded Yitzhak Arad