Ponary Diary, 1941-1943: A Bystander’s Account of a Mass Murder by Kazimierz Sakowicz, are pages from a diary kept by Sakowicz that offer a first person account of the murder of the Jews of Vilna, and others.
Sakowicz was a journalist who left Vilna to live in a cottage in the forest outside of the city, Ponary, at the outbreak of the war. There, Nazis and their Lithuanian collaborators murdered Jews by the tens of thousands in pits dug by the Soviets to store fuel. His house was both near the train depot, and the pits. Sakowicz was determined to document what he saw, and he does so dispassionately, with a reporter’s eye for detail. Much of what he writes about is appalling and realistic. The pits at Ponary were hell and Sakowicz does not spare us.
This journal was unavailable for years. The Russians wanted to downplay the specifics of the Holocaust, and instead view all as Communist martyrs, and the Lithuanians did not want to be implicated in the Nazi mass murder (which the journal accomplishes). Now the diary is available for all to read, in English; it is a vital resource.
Sakowicz was murdered in 1944, and supposedly kept his diary up to the day before his death. We only have pages up to 1943. We can only hope the rest of his journal will someday come to light.
Sakowicz was a journalist who left Vilna to live in a cottage in the forest outside of the city, Ponary, at the outbreak of the war. There, Nazis and their Lithuanian collaborators murdered Jews by the tens of thousands in pits dug by the Soviets to store fuel. His house was both near the train depot, and the pits. Sakowicz was determined to document what he saw, and he does so dispassionately, with a reporter’s eye for detail. Much of what he writes about is appalling and realistic. The pits at Ponary were hell and Sakowicz does not spare us.
This journal was unavailable for years. The Russians wanted to downplay the specifics of the Holocaust, and instead view all as Communist martyrs, and the Lithuanians did not want to be implicated in the Nazi mass murder (which the journal accomplishes). Now the diary is available for all to read, in English; it is a vital resource.
Sakowicz was murdered in 1944, and supposedly kept his diary up to the day before his death. We only have pages up to 1943. We can only hope the rest of his journal will someday come to light.
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