Julius Feldman (1923–1943)

Julius Feldman was born to a Jewish family in Kraków, Poland. He was a teenager when Nazi Germany invaded his country in World War II. In 1943, he began writing a diary-cum-memoir that detailed his life before and during the Nazi Occupation. Although writing in the 1940s, Julius recorded events dating back to August 1939 and the start of the war. He was the only Jewish student in his class at school, and recalled the effects of increasing anti-Jewish measures and persecution. His diary provides a unique insight into how horrifying and isolating life was for Polish Jews during those years. Julius chronicled his time in both the Kraków Ghetto, and Płaszów concentration camp. He was risking his life by keeping a record of events, and kept the pages carefully concealed. The diary ends abruptly in mid-sentence on April 11, 1943. Julius did not survive the Holocaust, and was probably murdered in May 1943, at age 19. His writings were found after the end of the war, hidden in the wall of the building where he had been a forced laborer. The manuscript was saved and eventually given to Julius's cousin Oscar and his wife Gisela, who worked tirelessly to ensure the diary was published. An English translation entitled The Kraków Diary of Julius Feldman was published in the USA in 2002.