Diary From Hell in Transnistria 1942–1944

Lipman Kunstadt | Edited by Sarah Rosen and Dalia Ofer

I decided to stop writing the diary and to destroy the pages… I eventually overcame the despair and listened to the counterargument…a miracle may occur and your fragmentary writings will be the only remaining memory of Transnistria. (Lipman Kunstadt, August 26, 1942)

Diary from Hell in Transnistria is a painfully vivid and intricate account of life in the Dzhurin ghetto in Transnistria, written by Lipman Kunstadt, who was deported there from Radauţi, Romania, with his wife, his children, his mother, and his sister on October 14, 1941. Kunstadt, who was well-educated and a journalist, was appointed secretary of the Jewish council in the Dzhurin ghetto, where he had access to a great deal of information about its inner workings. He began writing his diary in Yiddish on April 11, 1942, at great risk, sparing no criticism against the ghetto leadership.

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His journalistic instincts led him to discover and disclose the social scourges in the ghetto: the denunciations, the division into classes of the rich and the wretched poor, and the acrimonious relations between the deportees and the local Jews. Along with sharp criticism and harsh descriptions of the deportations, the diseases, and the deaths, the diary also abounds with Kunstadt’s musings and profound questions regarding God, justice and injustice, and reward and punishment, as well as poetic depictions of nature and the beauty of creation even in the hell of Transnistria. Kunstadt laid down his pen on April 13, 1945, following liberation and his return to his hometown of Radauţi with the surviving members of his family. Diary from Hell in Transnistria is a compelling, detailed chronicle of the fate of the Jews of Romania who were deported to Transnistria. Published for the first time in English, this annotated, scholarly edition makes a significant contribution to the study of the Holocaust in this region.