She said goodbye to her parents, her brother, and her sister and set off to enjoy two months in the country. That was the last time she ever saw her family. In June 1941, sixteen-year-old Lena Jedwab from Bialystok arrived at summer camp in Russia-just when Germany invaded the Soviet Union.

Shortly after, stranded by war in a children's home in Russia, Lena began to keep a diary, which she kept until the end of World War II. The diary chronicles her personal experiences of loneliness, pain, confusion, and her desire for love and recognition and also shows us vivid pictures of the world in which she lived and the world she had lost.

Lena wrote her diary in Yiddish, not only because it was her mother tongue, but also as a conscious effort to maintain her Jewish identity. Her writing shows exceptional literary talent, full of subtlety and sensitivity, and by using that talent she has left us a moving testimony to some of history's darkest days.