Justyna’s Diary

Gusta Dawidsohn-Draenger

1943

At that time the apartment at No. 13 was the base for all underground activities. Toward evening, groups of two or three left stealthily, some to take action against traitors and informers within the ghetto, others to seek arms on the outside. A minute before the curfew they returned, out of breath, at times triumphant, at times mortified at having…

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Creator Bio

Gusta Dawidsohn-Draenger

1917–1943

Gusta Dawidsohn-Draenger, whose nom de guerre was “Justyna,” kept a Polish diary in which she documented the saga of the Jewish armed resistance. Born in Kraków to a family of Ger Hasidim, she was a member of the Zionist Akiva youth movement. When World War II broke out, she and her husband, Szymon (Szymek) Draenger, worked underground forging identity documents and publishing Heḥalutz haloḥem, in Polish. Referring to herself in the third person, “Justyna” dictated her diary to her fellow cellmates over a three-month period during her imprisonment in 1943. It was recovered and published after the war.

Related Guide

Holocaust and Post-Holocaust Life-Writing and Reportage

1939–1973

Life writing and reportage captured individual Jewish experiences in a period of conflict and uncertainty. 

Related Guide

The Holocaust: Years of Catastrophe (1939–1945)

1939–1973

Jewish writing in Nazi-occupied areas documented ghetto life, moral questions, and Jewish identity, while writers in free zones grappled with the unfolding tragedy.

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