All language subtitles for The.Secret.Diary.Of.The.Holocaust.2009.720p.WEBRip.x264.AAC-[YTS.MX]

(sorrowful music)

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- [Rutka] The rope around us
is getting tighter and tighter.

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The little faith I used to have

has been completely shattered.

If God existed, He would
certainly have not allowed

humans beings to be thrown
into furnaces alive.

Or the heads of little
children to be smashed

with the butts of guns.

Or shoved into sacks and gassed to death.

It sounds like a fairytale,

those who haven't seen these
things would never believe it.

But it's no myth, it's the truth.

(sorrowful music)

- [Narrator] These words
were written in 1943

by a 14 year old Jewish
girl called Rutka Laskier.

The diary she kept in the
ghetto of Bedzin in Poland

remained hidden from the
world for over 60 years.

When it came to light in 2006,

Rutka was dubbed the Polish Anne Frank.

Zahava Scherz is Rutka's half sister

but she didn't even know
of Rutka's existence

until she herself was 14.

Now, she's on a journey
to discover the sister

she never knew.

(sorrowful music)

- [Zahava] I was born in
Israel, I was an only child

and we were a family of three.

Very happy family and very small family.

- [Narrator] Like many children
in Israel after the war,

Zahava grew up with no extended family.

- But when I was about 14 years old

I discovered an album which
was not in the regular place

where my parents used to keep albums.

My eye caught this picture of two children

and I thought that the girl
looks very much like me.

I decided that I'm going to
ask my father, "Who is this?"

And he said, "This is Rutka and Henius,

"they were my children.

"And they were murdered in
the Holocaust by the Nazis."

- [Narrator] Zahava's father revealed

that he had been married before in Poland

before the Second World War.

The family had been
transported to Auschwitz,

his wife and children were killed.

He alone had survived.

He remarried and made
a new life in Israel.

- This was a big shock,
a big surprise to me

that we didn't talk a lot about it.

My parents didn't want me to grow up

with the shadows of the Holocaust.

- [Narrator] Zahava's
father, Yaacov died in 1986.

She thought she'd hear no
more about his lost family.

Then in 2006, Zahava received a phone call

from a man she didn't know.

- He said, "Are you the
daughter of Yaacov Laskier?"

And I said, "Yes I am."

"Do you know if he had
a daughter named Rutka?"

And I said, "Yes, he did."

He said, "I have to tell you something.

"In Poland they discovered
a diary written by a girl

"named Rutka Laskier,

"we think it's the
daughter of your father."

And I thought that I'm going to faint.

Since then, I have a sister.

Really, because since then

I started a journey discovering Rutka.

- [Narrator] Rutka's
original handwritten diary

is now held at the Yad
Vashem Center in Jerusalem.

It's part of the
collection of evidence here

documenting some of the
six million individuals

who were murdered in the Holocaust,

as the Nazis tried systematically

to exterminate the entire Jewish people.

(mournful music)

After the Germans invaded Poland

at the beginning of World War II,

they forced the Jews into
confined areas known as ghettos

where they could be strictly controlled.

In one such ghetto, Rutka wrote her diary.

- When you read Rutka's story,

you read the unique
testimony of the Holocaust

and a story of an adolescent
in very dreadful times.

- [Narrator] Zahava has come to Yad Vashem

to look at Rutka's original diary

with the man who first
called her about it,

80 year old Menachem Lior.

He's a Holocaust survivor
and remembers Rutka

from the town of Bedzin in
Poland where they both grew up.

- She was a beautiful girl
and she was very very magic,

she was something special.

- [Narrator] Zahava has been able to read

the diary in translation

but this is the first time

she's had a chance to
examine the real thing.

- This is the diary.

It's very beautiful
handwriting, it's unbelievable.

You know, as a matter of fact,

it's the first time that I have a chance

to really look at it and
to hold it in my hand.

This is something that is
unbelievably exciting for me

and I can't believe that
it survived all these year

and in pretty good condition, I would say.

Pretty good condition.

- You are touching the ink of 70 years ago

and you're going back to
Rutka, to older time, to '43.

It's just (speaks in foreign language),

something special.

- [Narrator] Rutka's slim
notebook covers just three months

between January and April 1943.

Not yet 14, she's already
a veteran of the ghetto.

(speaks in foreign language)

- [Rutka] I can't believe
it's already 1943.

Four years since this hell began.

- [Narrator] The diary's a potent mix,

the intimate thoughts and
feelings of a teenage girl

alongside vivid descriptions
of Nazi atrocities.

(speaks in foreign language)

- [Rutka] I have a feeling

that I'm writing for the last time,

there's a round up of Jews in town.

I'm not allowed to go
out and I'm going crazy,

imprisoned in my own home.

- You can see the pen that she's using,

you can even see her emotions.

The handwriting is
getting wild a little bit,

it makes you feel like you are there.

All these 60 something
years didn't pass by.

- I think Rutka's diary
and her story are special.

She offered us an insight into things

that we might not have otherwise.

Especially from these young
eyes that are a mixture of

youth and adult all at once.

Adult experience with youth emotions.

So I think we've got something
really quite unusual here.

- I was afraid from the
beginning if it's the real diary.

A genuine diary, after
I read it, I was sure.

She mentioned something about
love with a boy named Janek,

who was my friend, three
people know about it,

Rutka, Janek and I.

- And she wanted to be kissed, you know.

And I don't think she got a chance.

- She got her chance, yeah.

- She did?

- She did.

- Okay.

(both laughing)

(plane engines whining)

- [Narrator] To understand
more about Rutka and her diary,

Zahava is making the journey from Israel

to Rutka's hometown of Bedzin in Poland.

Close to what was then German territory,

Bedzin was occupied within
days of the Nazi invasion,

in September 1939.

Five centuries of vibrant
Jewish life and culture,

came to a brutal end.

The Nazis began by confining the Jews

to a small area of town, the ghetto.

- [Rutka] I would like
to pour out on paper

all the turmoil I'm feeling inside.

But I just can't do it.

Sometimes I'm in such a foul mood

that when I open my mouth,
it's only to snap at people.

Other days, I'm bursting with joy

and could laugh all day long.

- [Zahava] I have a kind
of empty hole in my life.

I grew up with no close relatives

and it is not natural.

This trip in Poland is an opening for me

to know better my family.

Bedzin used to be a very
religious Jewish community.

It was vivid and full with life.

One thing which is good for me,

is the fact it didn't change much.

It is very much preserved.

You can really feel how it used to look.

(hopeful music)

- [Narrator] The first
person Zahava wants to see

is the man responsible for
publishing the diary in Poland.

Adam Szydlowski is Bedzin's
registrar of births,

deaths and marriages.

- Now we're going to Kamionka.

- [Narrator] He's also set up

an organization to rehabilitate

the town's lost Jewish heritage.

Adam has offered to
take Zahava to the house

in the former ghetto where
Rutka wrote her diary

and where she hid it

in the hope that one
day it would be found.

- This is the house?

- This is the house of Rutka.

- Wow, and where did they
live, in which floor?

In this floor?

- Next floor.

- [Zahava] Second floor?

- [Adam] Second floor.

(dog barking)

(door bell buzzing)

(dog barking)

- [Narrator] Several Jewish
families, including Rutka's,

were made to share this house.

- I'm Zahava Scherz.

- [Narrator] The Nazis
forced the Polish family

who had owned it before the war

to find somewhere else to live.

Their daughter Stanislawa

would come back occasionally

to check up on the place.

(sorrowful music)

- They were living here?

- [Rutka] Mum gets upset and screams at me

because of Henius.

He's a sweet little thing

but sometimes he can be pretty obnoxious.

Can't say anything in front of him

because he goes and tells
everything to the old folks.

- I think the diary was a
sort of privacy for Rutka.

I imagine that she
would write in the diary

when the apartment was empty.

I think you needed to
have somebody to talk to

and maybe those days she had two people.

She had the diary and she
had Stanislawa Sapinska.

- [Rutka] Although I don't
usually look good in photographs,

I'm in fact quite pretty.

I'm tall, thin, my legs aren't too bad.

I've big black eyes, short black
hair, nicely outlined lips.

And there's my portrait.

- I'm very curious to see,
where did she hide the diary?

- [Zahava] So underneath?

- Wow, unbelievable.

(calm music)

- [Narrator] After the
Nazis cleared the ghetto,

Stanislawa returned to look for the diary.

- [Narrator] It was only by chance

that Adam Szydlowski got
to hear about the diary,

over 60 years later.

He immediately realized
its historical value,

within months it had been published.

Stanislawa sometimes misses the diary

now that it's in Yad Vashem museum.

But Zahava and Adam
have a surprise for her.

- I want to give you a present,

it's on the memory of Rutka's diary.

(Stanislawa in foreign language)

- This is Rutka's diary.

It's a facsimile, it's like the original.

And it's so you remember Rutka,
you'll remember the diary

and you will remember
what you have done for me,

the memories and the
sister that you gave me.

It's like the original.

(lips smacking)

(children chattering)

- [Narrator] The
publication of Rutka's diary

was a big event in Bedzin.

It's now part of the curriculum

at the local elementary school.

- Hello.

- [Students] Hello.

(Zahava speaks in foreign language)

(students speak in foreign language)

- We are very glad that we
have sister of Rutka Laskier

over here in our school.

Now, we are waiting for Easter

and according to Polish traditions,

we want give you these
festive decorations.

- [Both] It's for you.

- Thank you very very much.

So what is the project that
the children are doing?

- The project is about
Jewish history in Bedzin.

And we also read the
diary of Rutka Laskier.

- I understand you all read
the book that Rutka wrote

and as you are very close to the age

she was when wrote the diary,

I wonder which part did you like the best?

What did you choose?

- Okay, can you read it?

(speaks in foreign language)

- [Rutka] They say I'm
intelligent, educated,

well maybe, I'm a bit nutty.

I like telling people in the face

exactly what I think about them.

I also sometimes like to
dress in a crazy manner,

basically I couldn't care less,

I am who I am and nothing
can possibly change that.

See you later, my diary.

- That's very nice, thank you very much.

- [Narrator] Despite her circumstances,

Rutka reveals all the normal
concerns of a teenage girl.

(girl speaking in foreign language)

- [Rutka] Tomorrow I will have
to settle things with Janek.

I'll tell him if he wants to be my friend,

he has to be on time or else adios.

Obviously not in those words exactly,

I couldn't care less about him.

But I'm curious to see
the look on his face.

Micka came round with lots of gossip.

Someone told her I'd cut
my hair to please Janek,

that I put on silk stockings
for Janek and so on.

That's a total lie, as if
I even cared about him.

- Why did you choose this?

What did you feel?

- [Narrator] Rutka's diary
entries move seamlessly

between the everyday
thoughts of a young girl

and the brutal reality
of life in the ghetto.

(girl speaks in foreign language)

- [Rutka] I'm so saturated
with the horrors of this war.

That even the worst things
I hear have no effect on me.

I just can't believe that one day

I'll be able to go out
without a yellow star.

Or that this war will ever end.

- What is your reaction
to life in the ghetto?

- I couldn't say it better
than you, thank you.

Rutka was a teenager.

And to see these girls
reading from the diary

choosing the part they liked,

all of a sudden there was Rutka for me

in many many voices.

- [Narrator] Before they were
sent to the ghetto in 1939

the Laskier family lived
in a middle class area

in the center of town.

It was once the heart of a
vibrant Jewish community.

- Wow, this is the house
where Rutka's family,

my father's family lived before the war.

I wondered whether the house exist

or whether it was destroyed

but I couldn't believe that
it is kind of an in between.

They were very modern people

and they were very
prosperous, very well to do.

They used to go skiing in the winter

and in the summertime they
would go to the seashore.

They had very nice life.

I think it is very important to remember

because that again gives us the connection

to the people they really were.

Because they not really were the people

that the German decided to diminish.

They were people like you
and me, like everybody,

and you can really feel
it from Rutka's notebook.

(calm music)

- [Rutka] I'm completely
absorbed with a longing

for something beautiful,
wonderful and distant.

When I'm standing by the riverside,

and looking at a gushing waterfall.

I feel something inside of me being lifted

and taken far away.

(calm music)

- [Narrator] The quality
of Rutka's writing

is remarkable, she had talent
but also a good education.

(bell ringing)

Rutka attended the Furstenberg-Gymnasium,

a private school for Jews

which is now a Polish state school.

One of her close friends
here was Linka Gold,

who managed to escape from the ghetto

and now lives in London.

At 79, she's the same age
Rutka would have been.

- Before the war, it was
a very happy go lucky

atmosphere, Rutka was an
attractive young girl.

Slim and tall and she
was very intelligent.

She was a good pupil
and she had followers,

a lot of boys, you know?

(girl speaking in foreign language)

- [Rutka] I think my
womanhood has awoken in me.

Yesterday when I was taking a bath

and the water stroked my body,

I longed for someone's hands to caress me.

I didn't know what it was,

I've never felt like this before.

- Well this is the first time I'm here,

and I'm really really very excited.

The minute I came in
it was what I expected,

like an old gymnasium
from the last century.

It is really exciting to
know that Rutka was here

and studied here and it's very meaningful.

- [Narrator] Rutka
mentions a number of boys

in her diary.

Most frequently, one called Janek.

(girl speaking in foreign language)

- [Rutka] Janek came
around this afternoon,

while we were talking,

he suddenly blurted out
he'd like it very much

if he could kiss me.

I said, maybe, and
continued the conversation.

But I won't let him kiss me.

I'm afraid it would destroy
something beautiful.

Pure, I'm also afraid that
I'll be very disappointed.

(girl speaking in foreign language)

- [Rutka] I've decided
to let Janek kiss me.

Eventually someone will
kiss me for the first time,

so let it be Janek.

I do like him.

(girl speaking in foreign language)

- [Rutka] I think I've
gone completely crazy.

Today when I woke up,

I realized I no longer have
any affection for Janek.

- More than half a century past,

but I think still relationships,

it's the same there and the same today

and I think that is why
it is so interesting

for young people to read Rutka's diary

to identify with people
who lived 70 years ago

and were quite the same.

They just had very different end.

A very different fate.

- [Narrator] Shortly
before the Nazis invaded

and closed all the schools in Benzin,

Rutka wrote a dedication in
her friend Linka's notebook.

- Here it is.

(speaks in foreign language)
means to your memory.

Enjoy every bit of your luck

and the moments of your luck

because they will fly
away like the butterflies

and afterwards will be painful.

And you'll feel sorry for yourself.

Rutka.

- [Narrator] Only a tiny
minority of the Jews

who lived in Benzin before the war,

survived the Holocaust.

One of them is the man
who first told Zahava

about Rutka's diary, Menachem Lior.

- Menachem has a fascinating story.

He escaped and he arrived to Israel

when there was still war in Europe.

There are very very few,
very few cases like that.

He was one year older than
Rutka, he used to know her.

- [Narrator] Menachem has come to Benzin

to share his memories of
the ghetto with Zahava.

- There were 27,000 Jews in Benzin.

Approximately 50 or 60% of the population.

It was a very very nice life in Benzin.

But when the war started,
everything changed.

We were afraid every day
what would happen to us.

This was an area where many Jews lived.

There's a church, there is a castle,

and for the Jews who lived
here, a big synagogue.

All the children came here to play,

especially Saturday or on occasions.

- It's very beautiful.

- It's was very beautiful,
it was for us an attraction,

to run between the walls of the castle,

it was a very nice place.

The main synagogue here, yes.

- Where was it, exactly
where the monument is?

- Yes and--

- [Zahava] How big was it?

- [Menachem] It was very big.

- [Zahava] How many people could it hold?

- A few hundred people.

- Wow.

What happened when the
Nazis invaded Bedzin?

- They occupied the town,

they closed all the schools,

they closed all the factories,

they closed all the business of the Jews.

They confiscate everything.

- What happened to the synagogue?

- After week, they were in Bedzin,

they burned the synagogue

with all the people that were inside.

(mournful music)

- One of the first major events

that was seared into the
memories of the people of Bedzin,

was the burning of the synagogue,

the main synagogue in Bedzin

with Jews inside of it,
who'd been forced inside.

That happened right after
the Nazis conquered.

This is part of a larger
picture in Poland,

there were thousands of
synagogues destroyed.

And the ones that were left standing

were the ones that were used either

as refugee centers or as storage rooms

and stables for the Germans.

- This monument is a symbol for the memory

of the citizen of the city
who were killed viciously

by the German Nazis in
the time of the Holocaust

in the year 1939 1945.

The friends of Bedzin built this monument

in the place where the
synagogue was standing

and it was burned and destroyed
by the Nazis' occupation

8th of September, 1939.

(mournful music)

- [Narrator] In this first
phase of their persecution,

the Nazis forced some 20,000 Jews

to gather their possessions

and move into the poorest area of town.

Here they were exploited as slave labor.

There was virtually no food
for those that couldn't work.

Kidnappings and beatings were commonplace

and a strict curfew was
enforced on pain of death.

The Nazis classified the Jews as subhuman.

- It wasn't a pleasant feeling.

Someone was watching you all the time.

And I was scared because to shoot a person

for the Germans was just
like having a piece of cake.

So we had to be very careful.

- [Rutka] I'm sick of these gray houses.

Of the fear painted on every face,

a fear that grips
everyone and won't let go.

Everywhere people are queuing up.

Queuing for potatoes, coal, bread.

A policeman pushed an old man,

he fell and hit is head on the cobbles.

Over there a woman is crying,
her husband has been arrested.

Who knows if she'll ever see him again.

(people chattering)

- I remember horrible things
happened in front of my house.

We came home and on the
trees were two bakers hanged.

Why, because they baked
some bread for people.

This is remember.

Which was very unpleasant and frightening.

(train roars)

- [Narrator] The Nazis
had worse horrors in store

for the Jews of Benzin.

As Rutka recollects in her diary.

The 12th of August, 1942,

some 30,000 people were told
to gather at a sports ground

next to the railway line.

Rutka, her parents and five
year old brother Henius,

arrived here at crack of dawn.

The stadium has since been demolished

to make way for Benzin's main bus station.

But this has not dimmed
Menachem memory of that day.

- I was here, I was a
young child, a young boy.

We were all together here.

Families, friends, waiting for something

that we didn't know what.

Most of the town was here.

And suddenly we saw
soldiers surrounding us

with machine guns.

And when we saw the soldiers

we understood something
was going to happen here.

(ominous music)

- [Rutka] I looked beyond the fence

and saw soldiers with
machine guns aimed at us.

People fainted, children were crying.

In short, Judgment Day.

- Well my mind is very vivid,

they gathered us all
on the football grounds

and they made a selection.

- [Narrator] Nazi policy towards the Jews

was becoming ever more draconian.

The young and able bodied
were still to be used

as forced labor

but those considered unproductive,

were to be rounded up for extermination.

- [Rutka] At three o' clock
the selection started.

Group one meant you could go home.

One A meant going to the labor camps.

Two meant going for further inspection

and three meant deportation.

In other words, death.

- Number three was (speaks
in foreign language),

which means sending to Auschwitz.

And you knew that this is the end.

- I think maybe for Rutka it was this time

that she really realized that
the plan is to kill the Jews.

- I fear the first time for Rutka,

that everyone realized that
they decided to kill the Jews.

In such situation, you don't feel nothing.

You are empty, just empty of feelings.

- [Narrator] When they Laskier's
turn came for selection

Rutka's parents and little brother

were put into the group
to be sent back home.

But Rutka, along with
her friend Linka Gold,

were selected for the group to be deported

to forced labor camps.

(crowd chattering)

- [Rutka] I walked over in a daze,

Linka Gold was already there.

The weirdest thing was
that there were no tears,

absolutely none.

- When I saw her, I said keep together,

let's stick together.

But she disappeared from the crowd

and I never saw her again.

(thunder cracking)

- [Rutka] Then all of a
sudden, it started pouring.

Little children were
lying on the wet grass

as the storm raged above our heads.

The police were beating people ferociously

and firing their guns.

I sat there until one o' clock at night.

(rain splashing)

- Part of the Nazi process,
often, in a round up,

was beating and shootings.

And Rutka describes that

in the August 1942 mass deportation.

Terrorizing populations into submission

was something Nazis were very good at.

They don't want people to
stop and think about options,

what does this mean?

What can I do?

Where can I hide?

But if you're being yelled
at, beaten over the head,

shot at, the natural human
instinct is to run for cover

and to go like that and do what they say.

And that's exactly what they wanted.

- There's the Polish area here.

- [Narrator] The Nazis
organized the deportations

with great efficiency.

The selection took place just
yards from the railway lines.

Which lead to the labor camps,

or to the death camps at
Auschwitz just 20 miles away.

- This was the train station?

- [Menachem] Railway station,
railway station of Bedzin.

- [Zahava] And that was the
station from which they--

- From this area they took
the people to Auschwitz, yeah.

- [Narrator] Rutka had been
taken to a nearby building

to await deportation to the labor camps.

Imagining this to be a
prospect even worse than death,

she decided to risk everything.

(dramatic music)

- [Rutka] I ran away,
my heart was pounding.

I jumped out of a window
on the first floor

of a small building.

In the street, I ran
into someone in uniform.

I was pretty sure he was going to beat me.

But apparently he was drunk

and didn't see my yellow star.

And he let me go, my head was spinning.

Around me it was dark
like in a prison cell.

(dog barking)

But from time to time,
flashes of lightening

lit up the sky and it thundered.

(tense music)

The journey home that normally
takes me half an hour,

I did in 10 minutes.

- She ran away from the round up in Bedzin

and that was risky and courageous.

Most people who tried to
run, as far as I know,

were shot so she evaded that as well.

And I think that that also, it
not only reflects her courage

and her initiative, she saw the situation

and said, "I've gotta get out of here."

But it also reflects a sort of watershed,

after that, even though
she's an adolescent teenager,

she's also a grown up.

She has an understanding of the world

that most people never have.

(windows slam)

- [Narrator] More than
4,500 Jews were transported

to their deaths at Auschwitz
following the round up.

Rutka had escaped, as had Linka Gold

with help from a family friend.

Back in the ghetto, Rutka describes

how she was forced to start
work in a Nazi sweatshop.

(mournful music)

- [Rutka] On Monday,

I've got to be at the factory by 6.30a.m.

6.30 is terribly early.

I wonder what kind of job I'll have.

(sewing machine whirring)

- [Narrator] Rutka was set
to work as a seamstress.

Probably in a uniform factory.

- [Rutka] The days go by,

every day it's the same grizzly day.

I work from 8a.m. to 2p.m.

It's bearable, the work is quite easy.

I'm getting through it somehow.

- Forced labor and exploitation of Jews

was a clear Nazi policy
from the very beginning.

There was absolute exploitation

for the benefit of the Third Reich.

Jews in Bedzin, many of
them being skilled laborers

because of the industries in the area

and others being craftsmen, tradesmen,

were very useful to the Nazis

'cause they gave them something.

So you have the development
of what was known as shops,

kind of workshops, in various fields,

textiles, shoemakers and things like that

and they would work for the Nazis.

And if you work as a jew

then they don't send you away somewhere

and you also have the right to eat

because Jews don't have
access to a grocery store.

They have access to a
food distribution center

but only if you qualified.

And if you work, you
qualified for yourself

and several family members.

So work for the Jews was a
ticket to remaining alive.

- [Narrator] For a while, Polish industry

was considered vital to
the German war effort.

But once the Nazis had
decided on their so called,

Final Solution, the
extermination of the Jews

took precedents over
exploiting their labor.

For Rutka and so many like her,

it was the beginning
of a decent into hell.

(sorrowful music)

- [Rutka] Something has broken in me.

When I pass by a German,

everything seems to shrink inside me.

I don't know whether it's
out of fear or hatred.

(sorrowful music)

I saw how a soldier tore a baby,

who's only a few months old,

out of his mother's arms

and bashed its head against a lamppost.

The baby's brain splashed on the wood.

The mother went crazy.

I'm writing this as if
nothing has happened.

As if I was in an army and
experienced in cruelty.

But I am young, I'm 14.

I haven't seen much in my life

and I'm already so indifferent.

I'm turning into an animal waiting to die.

- Rutka was very reflective.

I mean she was able to look at herself

and to realize what's
happening to her personality.

She says, "I'm getting used
to seeing this horrible thing,

"what kind of person am I?"

It's very sad.

The fact this young girl
was witness to that.

- [Narrator] In the spring of 1943,

the Nazis started preparing

for the ultimate fate of Bedzin's Jews.

First, the entire population was crammed

into an even smaller
ghetto called Kamionka,

on the outskirts of town.

- This is Kamionka, here was the ghetto.

It was a Polish area before the ghetto.

No Jews were here, they threw
out all the Polish people

and put us in.

They put many families in one apartment,

in one room, seven or eight people.

It was very crowded.

- So life was impossible?

- Hard life, not impossible, hard life.

- Hard life.

- [Rutka] I wish I could
leave all this behind

and run away from all
this grayish rottenness.

Spread my wings and fly high and far away.

Hear the wind howling,
feel it blowing on my face.

Fly to places where there are no ghettos,

no workshops, no pretending.

Enough now, I'm going to sleep.

- All the time she was very much scared

of moving to Kamionka.

- We were afraid.

Afraid of the change, well to be honest,

you have less space and warmth to live.

- This was the kind of demonization

that the Nazis did to the Jews.

They lost their dignity,
they lost their comfort,

they lost their freedom.

- We tried not to lose our dignity,

we tried but it was hard.

- You tried, yes, but that's
what they wanted you to do.

- Yes, it was very hard.

You tried not to lose.

We were young but old,
what happened to us.

Yes, very young in age
but old with our feelings.

We suddenly lose our youth.

- [Zahava] You lose your life.

- You lose your life,
you lose your friends,

your family, you lose everything
that was close to you.

(sorrowful music)

- [Rutka] The sun is shining so brightly,

outside the windows apple
trees and lilacs are blooming.

But you have to sit in the
suffocating and stinking room.

To hell with it, the
town is already empty.

Almost everyone lives in Kamionka.

We'll probably move there this week.

(children talking)

- [Narrator] This was the last entry Rutka

made in her diary,

on April 24th 1943.

- [Narrator] Fearing that
her diary would not survive,

she hid it under the stairs
as arranged with Stanislawa.

There's no record of what happened

to the family in the months

after they were moved here to Kamionka.

But in August, the Nazis carried out

their final liquidation
of the Jews in Bedzin.

- The took out the people from the houses,

brought them to the station,

put them on the train and
sent them to Auschwitz.

- [Zahava] Very efficient.

- [Menachem] Very efficient.

- [Narrator] The Laskier
family were amongst 30,000 Jews

taken to Auschwitz.

The registration card of Rutka
and Zahava's father Yaacov

shows that he was taken
there with his wife Dorka

and their children Rutka and
Henius on August the 5th.

(sorrowful music)

He told Zahava how the
infamous Auschwitz doctor

Josef Mengele was waiting for them

when they were unloaded
from the cattle trucks.

- They went there was Dr. Mengele

and he remembered him very very vividly

and he hated this man and he
said he was standing there

and he was the one who
decided to send the three

Rutka, Henier and Dorka to one side

and him to the other side.

And that was the last
time he saw his family.

(sorrowful music)

That meant that he would be sent work

and maybe will have the chance to survive.

And they for sure were
sent to the crematorium,

to the gas chamber.

And he knew it very well.

And that was pretty much,
as far as I know, the end.

Very very sad end of a beautiful girl.

Very talented.

My sister's story of my family,

this is the story of many Jewish families

in Eastern Europe in that time.

- [Narrator] But a
startling new revelation

may mean that Rutka was not taken directly

to the gas chambers with the others.

During the making of this film,

Adam Szydlowski was contacted

with a disturbing new
piece of information.

In 1947, a young girl called Zofia Minc

had dictated a witness statement

detailing her memories of Auschwitz.

- The new revelation has
made headlines in Bedzin.

Zofia Minc didn't arrive at Auschwitz

until several months after Rutka.

- If Rutka lived, as it
implies, six more months,

it is very sad.

I'd rather not think about it,

I would rather think
what I used to believe,

that Rutka died immediately.

For now, that's what I want to believe.

- [Narrator] Whatever the exact details,

Rutka died at Auschwitz

along with many of her
close family members.

Just a few of the six million murdered.

30,000 of them from Bedzin.

- In memory of over
30,000 Jews from Bedzin,

(dogs barking)

who have settled here for ages

and generation and have been taken away

and murdered by the Nazis, 1939 1945.

It's very symbolic, it's very symbolic.

(sorrowful music)

- [Narrator] Zahava's father, Yaacov,

survived a number of labor camps.

After the war, he tried to
make his way to Palestine

along with many thousands
of other Jewish refugees.

The ship he was traveling on

was turned away by the British

and he was sent to a
detainment camp in Cyprus.

Here he met his future wife.

- Through all my life
I felt so sorry for him

to lose children and I couldn't understand

how could he get his life back again

but he was a strong man

with lot of energy to continue.

He was a wonderful person.

I was very fortunate to
have a father like this.

- [Narrator] Having finally
made it to Palestine,

Yaacov remarried in
1947 and Zahava was born

two years later.

Long before she heard
that Rutka kept a diary,

Zahava named her own daughter

after the half sister
she knew so little about.

- Rutka was always a bit special to me

since I'm named after her.

I have the dark hair and eyes

so I guess I look a
little bit like her, yeah.

(children talking)

- [Zahava] In a mysterious way,

I always felt very close to Rutka,

I called my daughter Ruth.

Ruth now has two daughters of her own.

(children laughing)

- [Zahava] Rutka wanted
the diary to be found.

She knew that she was not
going to survive the war.

She wanted somebody to find it

and make it known to the world.

And apparently, this somebody is me.

At my age, to find a sister
and to get to know her

through a diary, this is an experience

that nobody imagined it
would happened to them.

- [Rutka] At daybreak, I got
up and ran to the window.

A tiny bit of golden sunlight

was already peeking over the horizon.

Less than half an hour later,

I was at the foot of the mountain.

I climbed higher and higher.

More and more often rocks blocked my way.

Piles of rocks stained with moss

and roots of trees were
twisted like embracing snakes.

The sun flooded the mountain
with its golden rays

and outlined the green of the grass.

In the distance, a thin
blueish streak of smoke

lit by shepherds could be seen far away.

(hopeful music)