Table Of Contenttitle: And Yet, I Am Here!
author: Nelken, Halina.
publisher: University of Massachusetts Press
isbn10 | asin: 1558491562
print isbn13: 9781558491564
ebook isbn13: 9780585342474
language: English
Nelken, Halina--Diaries, Jews--Poland--
Kraków--Diaries, Holocaust, Jewish (1939-
subject
1945)--Poland--Personal narratives, Kraków
(Poland)--Biography.
publication date: 1999
lcc: DS135.P63N46 1999eb
ddc: 943.8/6
Nelken, Halina--Diaries, Jews--Poland--
Kraków--Diaries, Holocaust, Jewish (1939-
subject: 1945)--Poland--Personal narratives, Kraków
(Poland)--Biography.
Page iii
And Yet, I Am Here!
Halina Nelken
Translated by Halina Nelken
with Alicia Nitecki
Page iv
Copyright © 1986 by Halina Nelken
English translation © 1999 by Halina Nelken
All rights reserved
First Polish-language edition, published by the Polish-Canadian
Publishing Fund, Toronto, 1987
First German-language edition, published by Bleicher Verlag,
Gerlingen, 1996
First English-language edition, published by the University of
Massachusetts Press, Amherst, 1999
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
Designed by Mary Mendell
Printed and bound by BookCrafters, Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Nelken, Halina.
[Pamietnik z getta w Krakowie. English] And yet, I am here!/
Halina Nelken; translated by Halina Nelken with Alicia
Nitecki. 1st English-language ed. p. cm.
1-55849-156-2 (cloth:alk. paper) 1. Nelken,
ISBN
HalinaDiaries. 2. JewsPolandKrakówDiaries.
3. Holocaust, Jewish (19391945)PolandPersonal
narratives 4 Kraków (Poland)Biography. I. Title.
135. 63 46 1999 943.8'6dc21 98-30275
DS P N CIP
British Library Cataloguing in Publication data are available.
Page v
The pastfor the future
To my grandson, Jason,
and to his parents,
Helen and Les Nelken
Page vii
Contents
Foreword ix
By George H. Williams
Introduction xi
By Gideon Hausner
Prologue: 7 1
Dlugosza
* Street
1 37
Diary From the Ghetto in Kraków
2 199
Behind Barbed Wire: Plaszow*, Auschwitz, Ravensbrück
3 245
Bottomless Pit
4 267
Return to Kraków
Epilogue: The Legacy of the Holocaust 271
Glossary 275
Biographical Note 277
Illustrations Follow Page 198
Page ix
Foreword
While researching the history of the Polish Aryans, I came across
some important polemics between Catholics and Protestants regarding
painting at the time of the Reformation and the Counter Reformation
in Poland. The editor of these volumes was Halina Nelken, whose
scholarly works published in Poland I knew long before I met her in
person in front of Widener Library.
She was brought to Harvard University by one of the most eminent art
historians, Professor Jakob Rosenberg, as his assistant at the Graphic
Art collection. While she worked at the Fogg Art Museum, she
cooperated with me in reading together the sixteenth-and seventeenth-
century texts in Polish and Latin and interpreting them with her
profound knowledge of Polish history, art, and literature. Such was the
beginning of our long intellectual friendship.
Her energetic and cheerful nature hardly let one suspect what she had
gone through during World War II. She was an effective and beloved
teacher, a respected researcher and authorbut above all, she was a
mother.
I witnessed the difficult struggle of a woman alone in a foreign land,
raising her little sonthe only family she had in the world. No matter
how difficult the task, she succeeded. She told me that nothing could
compare to Auschwitz, her measure of all things, and she mentioned
her diary. I urged her to transcribe it. While reading it, I realized what
a treasure it was, not only as a historical document, but also as a
testimony of the unconquerable human spirit.
It touches us all, young and old, how this resourceful woman,
unscathed by cruel depravity, evil, and hatred, survived with spirit,
courage, and integrity.
GEORGE HUNSTON WILLIAMS
HOLLIS PROFESSOR OF DIVINITY, EMERITUS
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS
OCTOBER 15, 1997
Page xi
Introduction
Hundreds and perhaps thousands of Jews in the cities, towns, ghettos,
and camps wrote memoirs and kept diaries during World War II"they
were journalists, writers, teachers, social activists, young people, and
even children." Quoting the Warsaw ghetto historian Emmanuel
Ringelblum, Dr. Jozef Kermisz from Yad Vashem reports with
profound sorrow that most of the diaries vanished or were destroyed
during the deportations, first uprisings, and fires. He supplies a long
list of writers, social and resistance activists, whose diaries shared the
tragic fate of their authors.
After the war, some of the miraculously saved survivors continued the
mission and published their memoirs. But memoirs are not the
journals or diaries written immediately during the events as they
happened. Memoirs re-create the past through the prism of many
years, enriched by additional information unknown to the author
before. They are true, but the truth is controlled by the knowledge of
later events that might distort the authenticity of their account.
Diaries of writers, politicians, and scholars are different from those
written by children or very young girls, like Anne Frank. The journals
of famous activists or leaders tend to be written "for posterity"; as a
conscious legacy to future generations, they describe this tragic era to
be ever remembered. The authors do not emphasize their personal
experience, but the historical, social, political, and economic
elements.
A diary of a young girl who was locked up in the ghetto and removed
from normal life before it even began for hersuch a diary is her true
confessor. She confides to her diary her personal experiences,
thoughts, hopes, and disillusionments, which she would not even
Description:When Germany invaded Poland in 1939, Halina Nelken was a precocious teenager, living a middle-class life in Krakow. Like other girls her age, she recorded her personal observations and feelings in a diary. As conditions in Krakow deteriorated and her family was forced into the Jewish ghetto, she con
