“Everyone was going in the same direction, rushing toward the same goal, the dirtiest, ugliest quarter of the city, a place with no sewers and paved with cobblestones.... The ghetto.”
Irena Aronowicz, age 15, spring 1940
Irena Aronowicz was born in Lodz, Poland, in 1925. In 1940, she moved with her family into the Lodz ghetto. There she began to write a daily diary.
By 1942, Irena remained in the ghetto with just her sister. The two of them were deported to Auschwitz in August 1944. She took with her four full books containing her diary: they were lost forever. Irena was taken to a series of concentration camps including Birkenau, Freiberg, and finally Mauthausen.
In May 1945, American troops liberated Irena in Mauthasuen. Immediately following liberation, Irena set out to recreate her diaries from memory. In 1946, she moved to Palestine where she married Joseph Liebman in 1949. There, she raised a family and wrote novels.
Help the Museum find out what happened to other children from the Lodz ghetto »
Online Exhibition—"Give Me Your Children": Voices from the Lodz Ghetto »
Related Podcast—Alexandra Zapruder »
