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Friday April 20, 2007

Child’s diary of Nazi terror due

The diary of a Czech boy killed in Auschwitz will be released Sunday, April 22.

“The Diary of Petr Ginz: 1941-1942,” published by Atlantic Monthly Press, tells the story of the Nazi terror in Prague through the eyes of a 13-year-old boy. Ginz’s sister, Chava Pressburger, 77, edited the diaries and wrote the book’s introduction.

According to an interview with Pressburger in the New York Times, the book is nearly journalistic in its documentation of the changes in the lives of Jews as they gradually were denied basic rights. At the same time, Ginz also writes about ordinary events, such as class tests and teasing teachers. He became known after his drawings, made at the Terezin camp, were taken by Israeli astronaut Ilan Ramon on the ill-fated Columbia space shuttle trip in2003.

As the story of the Ginz drawing came out, a Prague man contacted the Yad Vashem memorial in Israel and said he had discovered the Ginz diaries in his attic. Pressburger confirmed their authenticity. — jta

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