The Last Days of the Jerusalem of Lithuania: Chronicles from the Vilna Ghetto and the Camps

Herman Kruk

1942

September 30 [1942], 1:30 in the Afternoon

I Weep

I weep, and am amazed. I have seen death so many times and have controlled myself. Have experienced so much torment, disgrace, and humiliation, and called myself the eternal optimist. And now?

What is my life worth even if I remain alive?

Whom to return to in my old home town of Warsaw?

For what and for…

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Creator Bio

Herman Kruk

1897–1944

Herman Kruk was a librarian and labor activist. Serving as director of the Bund’s Grosser Library at the Cultural League in Warsaw, he fled to Vilna at the beginning of World War II. While confined to the Vilna ghetto he organized a library for the Jewish community. His diary, which he kept until 1944, was hidden in the Vilna ghetto; parts of it were recovered after the war and published by YIVO in 1961. Kruk perished in Estonia.

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