The diary of a Czech boy killed in Auschwitz will be released Sunday. “The Diary of Petr Ginz: 1941-1942,” published by Atlantic Monthly
Press, tells the story of the Nazi terror in Prague through the eyes of a
13-year-old boy. Ginz’s sister, Chava Pressburger, 77, edited the diaries
and wrote the book’s introduction.The book, according to an interview with
Pressburger in The New York Times, is nearly journalistic in its documentation
of the changes in the lives of Jews as they gradually were denied basic rights. At the same time,
Ginz also writes about ordinary events such as class tests and teasing teachers. He became known after his drawings, made at the Terezin
camp, were taken by Israeli astronaut Ilan Ramon on the
ill-fated Columbia space shuttle trip in 2003. As the story of the Ginz drawing came out, a Prague
man contacted the Yad Vashem memorial in Israel and said he had discovered the Ginz diaries
in his attic. Pressburger confirmed their authenticity.
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