In June 1941, sixteen-year-old Lena Jedwab left Bialystok for summer camp in Russia, just when Germany invaded the Soviet Union. Stranded in a children’s home in Russia due to the war, Lena agonized over the unknown fate of her family and her precarious future. Lucky to be alive, nourished, and in school yet consumed with anger at the war and the confusion of adolescence, Lena began to keep a diary. She chronicled her personal experiences of loneliness, pain, and fear, as well as her desire for love and recognition and her vivid descriptions of the world around her. Lena wrote her diary in Yiddish, not only because it was her mother tongue but also as a conscious effort to maintain her Jewish identity. Her writing shows an exceptional literary talent, full of subtlety and sensitivity, and by using that talent, she has left us a moving testimony to one of history’s darkest times.

Join Dorothée Rozenberg, daughter of Lena Jedwab Rozenberg, to talk about her mother’s wartime diary, Girl with Two Landscapes translated by Solon Beinfeld.