History of the Dawid Rubinowicz Diaries

Stefan Rachtan

Dawid Rubinowicz

The tragedy of the extermination of Bodzentyn Jews took place sixty-seven years ago this September 2009. Amongst those condemned to die in the ovens of the Treblinka extermination camp was 14 year old Dawid Rubinowicz.

Who was Dawid Rubinowicz and why do we remember him today in particular?

Dawid Rubinowicz was born in Kielce on 26July 1927, the son of Josek and Tauba of Jewish faith. His father moved from Kielce to Krajno. A piece of farmland he owned  he sold to build a small dairy. The family resided in a single roomed dwelling with a kitchen which adjoined the dairy premises. The Rubinowicz family led a typical rural lifestyle. They were respected for their honesty, cleanliness and friendliness towards others.

Dawid started his school education in the school year 1933/4, and in turn in the school year of 1938/39  was a pupil of the year 6 class in Krajno. From surviving school records it appears had good and very good grades   His form tutor at the elementary school in Krajno was Florentyna Krogulec. In an interview with newspaper reporters in 1960 she confirms that he was the eldest sibling – he had a brother and sister. Dawid was slim and tall with blue eyes and plain nose.

During the first months of the occupation the Germans stopped all Jews attending school. Consequently Dawid finished his school education in 1938/39. At his mother’s request, Florentyna Krogulec regularly set him schoolwork which he did from text books. The schoolwork took place in secret since disclosure of the fact would have meant severe sanctions being imposed by the occupant.

In 1940 the General Governor Hans Frank issued an order banning all Jews from using trams, buses or the railway and afterwards all forms of transport. This continued and tied in with the policy of the occupying authorities of the eventual creation of ghettos for the Jewish population.

Around this time resettlement of Jews to designated centres was started.  Such a place  was Bodzentyn to which  Jews from neighbouring districts were moved. The German authorities forbade the Jews from leaving the town, effectively making it a ghetto Amongst families resettled to Bodzentyn was Dawid Rubinowicz’s family. They moved in with a relative of theirs, Cisłowski the tailor, then  living in Kielce Street 13.

Twelve year old Dawid started writing his diary in Krajno which begin  on 21March 1940 and finish on 1 June 1942 in Bodzentyn. The diary  was written down in five ruled school exercise books with orange covers. The  notes  in 1940 take up  eight an half pages whereas in 1941 they fill out forty five pages and  in 1942, as many as  sixty-three. There are three pages missing from the fifth of the last of the surviving exercise books .

In his diary young Dawid invariably gives a lot of attention to war time village life. He not only describes the surrounding natural environment of  fields, meadows and forests but also reveals the harsh realities of the Nazi  murder  mills. Only one of its kind, it is a shocking account of the atrocities of war seen through the eyes of an adolescent Jewish boy in occupied Poland.    

David lived till the end of September 1942, to the day when the  Jewish community of Bodzentyn was driven out to the railway station in Suchedniów, where 5000 Jews were loaded onto ready and waiting cattle freight  wagons which had been  sprayed with lime earlier, to be sent  via Małklina  to  the Treblinka extermination  camp. Together with his closest companions and kin Dawid was transported to Suchendiów and from there by train to Treblinka.

Dawid’s diary was left at his next-door neighbours home and friend Tadeusz Waciński - son of Tadeusz  who passed them on together with other school belongings to Antoni Waciński. There it remained for 15 years.

In 1957 Helena  and Artemuiusz Wołczyk came into possession of  the diary which was then read out over a local  radio broadcasting system.  In 1959 the diary fell into the hands of writer Maria Jarochowska and Jarsoław Iwaszkiewicz. In the meantime it emerged the document  was a testimony of events deserving interest  on a  European scale. The diary has since caught worldwide  interest and attention .  It  has been translated into 15 languages and hundreds of thousands copies having been published to date.