June 7, 1944 – Anonymous Boy

The Allied invasion of German-occupied Western Europe began with the Normandy landings on June 6th, 1944. This has come to be known in the history of World War II as D-Day. Within 24 hours, word of these momentous events had spread to the Lodz Ghetto.

RESISTING DESTRUCTION

A brief diary entry by an anonymous boy, dated June 7th, dealt with this most significant development. He wrote, “It is true, the fact [of the Allied landing] has been accomplished, but shall we survive?”  

This response perfectly expressed the situation for many Jewish people still alive in the spring of 1944. Help was on the way and Germany’s defeat was virtually assured, but for the author and for many others it would be too late. A few days earlier, he wrote about his desperate struggle to survive starvation and the other deprivations of ghetto life. The success of the Allied landings could not change these conditions overnight.

Ghetto residents did everything possible to resist their destruction. They fought to preserve their lives as well as their dignity under conditions that were designed to bring about their total annihilation. In spite of their best efforts to maintain inner strength, true deliverance would have to come from without. The Allies would eventually prevail; bringing Nazi Germany to defeat, but sadly none of the ghettos would make it to the end.

Excerpts from this diary, along with many others, are published in an anthology entitled, Salvaged Pages: Young Writers’ Diaries of the Holocaust, Collected and edited by Alexandra Zapruder.

Learn more about D-Day.