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Helga's Diary
- A Young Girl's Account of Life in a Concentration Camp
- Narrated by: Emily Bevan
- Length: 5 hrs and 13 mins
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Helga's Diary
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Summary
In 1938, when her diary begins, Helga is eight years old. Alongside her father and mother and the 45,000 Jews who live in Prague, she endures the Nazi invasion and regime: Her father is denied work, schools are closed to her, she and her parents are confined to their flat. Then deportations begin, and her friends and family start to disappear.
In 1941, Helga and her parents are sent to the concentration camp of Terezn, where they live for three years. Here Helga documents their daily life - the harsh conditions, disease, and suffering, as well as moments of friendship, creativity, and hope - until, in 1944, they are sent to Auschwitz. Helga leaves her diary behind with her uncle, who bricks it into a wall to preserve it. Helga’s father is never heard of again, but miraculously Helga and her mother survive the horrors of Auschwitz, the gruelling transports of the last days of the war, and manage to return to Prague. As Helga writes down her experiences since Terezn, completing the diary, she is 15 and a half. She is one of only a tiny number of Czech Jews who have survived.
Reconstructed from her original notebooks, which were later retrieved from Terezn, and from the loose-leaf pages on which Helga wrote after the war, the diary is presented here in its entirety. As such, Helga’s Diary is one of the most vivid and comprehensive testimonies written during the Holocaust ever to have been recovered.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
- sue
- 29-03-13
sadly compelling listening.
Written from Helgas childlike point of view you have to read more into the situation as an adult but that makes it all the more moving.
Beautifully written.
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4 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Rose
- 22-07-18
Who says you can’t live without the internet?
There are vain people who scream that they can’t live without social media, mobile phones, make-up and so on. Well there people managed for five years to live without even the word freedom to sustain them so this book is yet more proof that vanity is something we’d all be better off without. On the book itself well, I never feel quite comfortable about judging a personal account of something that really happened but for once here’s an account which is harrowing of course but also upbeat and full of the thoughts and genuine feelings of a mere child forced to grow up before her time. It pulls no punches and at first you think of it as just a good whinge but actually it’s not. It’s a decent first hand account of all the emotions involved in being in prison and making the best of it. The optimism and the despair are here and it’s really well read too capturing all the emotions that Helga really felt and I’m glad there are people around that wanted to publish their accounts though I wonder where she got the paper from and the time to write this diary which I will admit at first seems a bit disjointed but then diaries often do. I enjoyed it though but it might have been nice to learn whether her parents survived or not. I think they may not have done, I hope though that they did.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Fran
- 12-06-13
Very good read
Fabulous story gives insight into the personal experience of the concentration camp and what happened to this young lady and how she put the past behind her. Truly heart rendering
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3 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Amazon Customer
- 12-06-18
Amazing
An amazing account of a young girl in the concentration camps very interesting and moving beautiful read.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- katie rust
- 30-06-15
Real
Loved this book from start to finish. Made me feel like I was there living every second
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2 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- S J Windsor
- 19-10-18
very interesting
well read, such a sad story but so interesting to try and understand even an inch of what they went thought
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- John
- 10-02-16
What can one say
it shows that the human sprid can not be drag down by evil man or woman
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- Anonymous User
- 11-07-21
absolutely wonderful the human spirit is amazing!
This book is a wonderful tribute ..and makes you look at the life we live today with apresation highly recommend .
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