Diaries offer a window into people’s personal experiences, reactions, and inner-most feelings. In this session, we will read a chapter from Mary Berg’s diary of life in the Warsaw Ghetto alongside a reflective piece on young people’s diaries by Alexandra Zapruder. In doing so, we will question not only the content and style of diaries but, also, consider how they are created and altered and the impact this has on how we use them in research.

Mary Berg, ‘Chapter VIII – Horror Stalks the Streets’, The Diary of Mary Berg: Growing up in the Warsaw Ghetto, (Oxford: Oneworld, 2006).

Alexandra Zapruder, ‘Appendix II – At the Margins’, Salvaged Pages: Young Writer’s Diaries of the Holocaust (Yale University Press, 2002), pp. 444-450.