- Hardcover: 192 pages
- Publisher: Yale University Press; annotated edition edition (3 Jan 2006)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0300108532
- ISBN-13: 978-0300108538
- Product Dimensions: 2.2 x 1.4 x 0.2 cm
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 961,268 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
Ponary Diary, 1941-1943
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""Ponary Diary" is a vivid, intimate account of mass murder, and chilling in its relentless detail. The Holocaust has few more compelling witnesses than Kazimierz Sakowicz."--Joshua Rubenstein, Northeast Regional Director, Amnesty International USA
--Joshua Rubenstein
--Joshua Rubenstein
Product Description
About sixty thousand Jews from Wilno (Vilnius), present-day Lithuania, and surrounding townships were murdered by the Nazis and their Lithuanian collaborators in huge pits on the outskirts of Ponary. Over a period of several years, Kazimierz Sakowicz, a Polish journalist who lived in the village of Ponary, was an eyewitness to the murder of these Jews as well as to the murders of thousands of non-Jews on an almost daily basis. He chronicled these events in a diary that he kept at great personal risk. Written as a simple account of what Sakowicz witnessed, the diary is devoid of personal involvement or identification with the victims. It is thus a unique document: testimony from a bystander, an 'objective' observer without an emotional or a political agenda, to the extermination of the Jews of the city known as 'the Jerusalem of Lithuania'. Sakowicz did not survive the war, but much of his diary did. Painstakingly pieced together by Rahel Margolis from scraps of paper hidden in various locations, the diary was published in Polish in 1999. It is here published in English for the first time.
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4 reviews
23 of 24 people found the following review helpful
Shocking document
4 Feb 2007
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
I've decided to read this book because I visited Vilnius (Lithuania) last month and there I visited the KGB museum. The museum is very impressive, but where it does show a lot of wrongs of the KGB (when the Soviets were in power in Lith.), it hardly mentions anything at all about the significant role local Lithuanians played in the Holocaust during WW II. I stumbled upon this title by surfing Amazon, and then decided to order it. The 'Ponary Diary' is hard to digest realy. It is an almost casual diary of a Polish journalist who lived in the area of the infamous killing fields of Ponary. What I found so hard to digest, is the matter-of-fact style in which the entries are written. There is no emotion whatsoever, Sakowicz could have been describing the local cattle slaugther-house. But maybe it is a good thing he writes in such a distanced way, so the facts (the things he actually witnessed with his very own eyes) don't get blurred. I'm glad I read this book, but I would not want to read it again. It is that hard to take. (What bothered me also a bit, was the fact that nothing was written by way of an epilogue, of what happened to those sadistic Lithuanian and German mass-murderers. They remain nameless and faceless for the most part).
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
An Eyewitness Account of Vilna Exterminations
24 Feb 2010
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
In 1941 Hitler chose Lithuania as his first focus for the mass extermination of all Jews. These events took place deep in the woods 5 miles west of Vilnius in the area known in Lithuanian as Paneriai or in Polish as Ponary. The immediate neighborhood was populated by meager Poles who were the first to become aware of the Nazi "actionen" being carried out here.
Diarist, Kazimierz Sakowicz, a Pole, lived in an area that allowed him full view of not only the road and train tracks, but also the three extermination pits that were 50 yards in diameter and 3 feet deep, pits originally dug by the Soviets and intended to become aircraft fuel storage tanks.
As a bystander and witness Sakowicz begins keeping daily records from the first day he hears shots ring out across the woods. He keeps tallies of the numbers of individuals brought to the site, indicating men, women, children, elderly, and infirm, and reports runaways, beatings, and random shootings on the road or tracks. Sakowicz also has the ability to identify the national identities of those executed whether Jews, Lithuanians, or Poles as all ethnic groups were potential targets of the Germans for infractions and mistrust existed between all ethnicities.
He substantiates the active involvement of Lithuanian men (Shaulists) acting solely as the riflemen, with 300 Lithuanian men from Vilnius conscripted for this purpose. The Nazis remain in charge but the Lithuanians are the executioners.
Sakowicz reports facts only without emotion. His diary papers were stored in bottles and buried in the ground around his shack. Once uncovered, they were published first in 1999 in Polish and then in 2005 in English. It is believed the complete diaries have either not been located or were destroyed for their indictment against the essential participation of the Lithuanians in the Paneriai massacres.
Sakowicz was shot on the road on his bicycle under unknown circumstances and he is buried in Vilnius in Rasu Cemetary.
Diarist, Kazimierz Sakowicz, a Pole, lived in an area that allowed him full view of not only the road and train tracks, but also the three extermination pits that were 50 yards in diameter and 3 feet deep, pits originally dug by the Soviets and intended to become aircraft fuel storage tanks.
As a bystander and witness Sakowicz begins keeping daily records from the first day he hears shots ring out across the woods. He keeps tallies of the numbers of individuals brought to the site, indicating men, women, children, elderly, and infirm, and reports runaways, beatings, and random shootings on the road or tracks. Sakowicz also has the ability to identify the national identities of those executed whether Jews, Lithuanians, or Poles as all ethnic groups were potential targets of the Germans for infractions and mistrust existed between all ethnicities.
He substantiates the active involvement of Lithuanian men (Shaulists) acting solely as the riflemen, with 300 Lithuanian men from Vilnius conscripted for this purpose. The Nazis remain in charge but the Lithuanians are the executioners.
Sakowicz reports facts only without emotion. His diary papers were stored in bottles and buried in the ground around his shack. Once uncovered, they were published first in 1999 in Polish and then in 2005 in English. It is believed the complete diaries have either not been located or were destroyed for their indictment against the essential participation of the Lithuanians in the Paneriai massacres.
Sakowicz was shot on the road on his bicycle under unknown circumstances and he is buried in Vilnius in Rasu Cemetary.
Excellent
3 May 2012
Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase
I've read many, probably too many, books on the holocaust.
I've written more than a few papers on the subject.
This book does stand out from the rest, not necessarily better than, but different than.
It is an excellent book, and it should be required reading for anyone interested in how "average citizens" ( the Lithuanians) could become the lapdogs of the Nazi machine.
Hatred is a powerful thing, and this book explains the banality of the power when an entire society succumbs to it.
I've written more than a few papers on the subject.
This book does stand out from the rest, not necessarily better than, but different than.
It is an excellent book, and it should be required reading for anyone interested in how "average citizens" ( the Lithuanians) could become the lapdogs of the Nazi machine.
Hatred is a powerful thing, and this book explains the banality of the power when an entire society succumbs to it.
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