College of Arts and Sciences

Oakland University professor to speak at new Holocaust Memorial Center exhibit

‘The Girl in the Diary: Searching for Rywka from the Łódź Ghetto' focuses on women during the Holocaust as seen through a Polish teenager’s diary

icon of a calendarJuly 21, 2021

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OU professor to speak at new Holocaust Memorial Center exhibit
The Girl in the Diary
"The Girl in the Diary: Searching for Rywka from the Łódź Ghetto" will be on display from July 29 through Dec. 30 at the Holocaust Memorial Center Zekelman Family Campus in Farmington Hills, Mich. (Image courtesy of the Galicia Museum, Krakow Poland)

In 1945, a Soviet doctor found a school notebook in the liberated Auschwitz-Birkenau Camp. It was a diary written by Rywka Lipszyc, a teenager in the Łódź Ghetto, between October 1943 and April 1944. The contents were the testament of a Jewish girl who lost her siblings and parents, but never lost hope despite moments of doubt.

More than 60 years after its discovery, the diary traveled to the United States, where it was translated from Polish, supplemented with commentaries and published in book form.

The Girl in the Diary
(Image courtesy of the Galicia Museum,
Krakow Poland)

Lipszyc’s diary, a moving memoir of life and adolescence in the Łódź Ghetto, is the starting point for the upcoming exhibition, “The Girl in the Diary: Searching for Rywka from the Łódź Ghetto,” which will be on display from July 29 through Dec. 30 at the Holocaust Memorial Center Zekelman Family Campus in Farmington Hills, Mich.

The exhibition, which will be presented in cooperation with the Galicia Jewish Museum in Kraków, Poland, will be supplemented by expert commentary from historians, doctors, psychologists and rabbis. These commentaries help to understand the context of the times and events Rywka refers to in her diary.

“Rywka’s Holocaust experience is a compelling story because it gives us insight into the individual experiences of so many others. Her daily struggles, interests, and fears allow us to get to know Rywka as a person, not a statistic. We are very fortunate to have this exhibit on display at our museum,” said Holocaust Memorial Center Education Director Ruth Bergman.

The exhibition also includes unique historical artifacts and documents from museums in Poland, the United States, Israel, Germany and Belgium. Historical objects from the Łódź Ghetto and Chełmno (Kulmhof) Death Camp are on loan from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington and the Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw, Poland.

Derek Hastings
Derek Hastings

“Objects like this are especially important as the years continue to pass,” said Derek Hastings, an associate professor of history at Oakland University. “They remind us once again that despite the massive scope of the Holocaust, the individual victims were anything but faceless. Rywka's deeply personal reflections — especially regarding her faith — are poignant and moving.”

On Wednesday, Sept. 1, Hastings will walk attendees through this time in history when Rywka penned her diary. His lecture, titled “A Girl Lost, A Diary Found: Life in the Łódź Ghetto,” gives an up-close and historical perspective on the brutal conditions of the Łódź ghetto.

The lecture begins at 7 p.m. at the Holocaust Memorial Center, which is located at 28123 Orchard Lake Road in Farmington Hills. The program also will be streamed live on the Holocaust Memorial Center website, https://www.holocaustcenter.org/. To register to attend the lecture in-person or virtually via Zoom, visit https://www.holocaustcenter.org/diary.

“The Cis Maisel Center for Judaic Studies and Community Engagement at Oakland University is proud to sponsor this event,” said Michael Pytlik, director of Judaic Studies and director of the Cis Maisel Center for Judaic Studies and Community Engagement. “The work of the Holocaust Memorial Center to preserve and tell the human stories of the Holocaust is crucial, especially in our time. Our center is committed to educating our students and the community about the Holocaust and Jewish history through such moving exhibits as the Rywka diary.”

The story presented in the exhibition is mainly, but not exclusively, the story of women. Traditionally, most of the wartime narratives and memories of the German occupation concentrate of the fate of men — soldiers, politicians and leaders. In Rywka’s world, the perspective is the opposite. Men appear in the diary, but remain in the shadows, in the background. They are present, but not dominant.

The world we get to know from Rywka’s diary is populated by women and its structure is created by relations between them. It is filled with their pain and longing, courage, daily battles and their fear.

“Told from a woman’s perspective, we gain insight into the daily horrors Rywka and other women faced in the Łódź Ghetto, while at the same time showed their unwavering religious faith and hope for the future,” said Bergman.

In order to not interfere with this unique narrative, all of the commentaries used to supplement the text of the diary were also prepared by women. The design of commentaries complementing the diary is adapted from the traditional Jewish method of explaining and interpreting sacred texts. In this symbolic way, the exhibition also refers to Rywka’s devotion to the tradition in which she grew up, to her unwavering faith in God and God’s care.

For more information or to register for the program, please visit holocaustcenter.org or call (248) 553-2400.

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