The diary of Adam Czerniakow, who was chairman of the Jews in Warsaw, Poland between 1939 and 1942. A fundamentally decent if unextraordinary man, he committed suicide to avoid having to deport the people of the Warsaw Ghetto to their deaths. Czerniakow's diary is quite laconic -- many entries are just a few sentences long -- but provides many details of his efforts on the behalf of the Warsaw Jews.

Obscure references are demystified in the footnotes. There are also some black and white photographs of ghetto scenes, an appendix of ghetto-related documents and letters, and two introductions totaling seventy pages which provide more information on the life and death of Czerniakow and the story of the Warsaw Ghetto.

This is hardly a gripping read, but it is essential if you want to know the story of the Warsaw Jews. Czerniakow worked as best he could from them, but he and they were lost from the start. ( )

Extremely abbreviated daily descriptions of Warsaw immediately following the German invasion; followed by the excruciatingly incremental, falsely legal destruction of the Jewish population. Written by the Community leader. ( )

Holocaust