Another Diary

      More Letters From Paradise
           Another Diary

I am pretty sure that most people in the world know the tragic story told in the "Diary of Anne Frank".   Her diary has been translated into 67 languages.  A stage play and a motion picture all tell of her life and death along with her sister Margot, of typhus in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.

I recently bought a few books at a local book sale and made a discovery. It is a diary written during the same time of Anne Frank. The title is "Young Moshe's Diary." It cost me one dollar. It first appeared in 1958 and was published in Jerusalem. The first English edition was published in 1965. The diary was written by Moshe Flinker.

There are some similarities: both were young adolescents and both were Dutch citizens. Anne lived in Amsterdam and Moshe lived in The Hague. And they both were killed by the Nazis. But there are many differences. Anne was from an assimilated Jewish environment and wrote her diary in Dutch.  Moshe lived in an Orthodox family and wrote in Hebrew. That is probably why his diary is comparatively unknown. Young Moshe was deeply religious, and lived according to the strict rules of Jewish orthodoxy. He prayed daily for all the Jews who were suffering, and for his own family.

Moshe's father was a wealthy businessman.  Moshe's family consisted of a father, mother, three sisters and a younger brother. They  were living in The Hague when the Germans swept over Europe. Thousands of Jews fled before the Nazi menace. Moshe's mother begged the father to flee to Switzerland, but he had been doing business in Brussels for over twenty years, and he felt that it was a safe place for them.

So the family moved to Brussels, where the Nazis were more lenient towards Jews.  Moshe's father paid for permission to live as aliens for three months. Then he paid again for six months, and he paid again for a long time permit. These permits allowed the family to use food stamps and lead an almost normal life. Unlike Anne, who was in hiding for two years, Moshe was free to attend school, going on his bike. Then Jews had to turn in  all bikes. So he took the trolley. The Jews were then forbidden to use the trollies. So Moshe walked to school.

All around them Jewish families were being rounded up and sent West. Moshe notes in his diary hearing Gobbels, the Nazi propaganda leader on the radio, raving against the Jews. He writes about the fighting between the Nazi's and Russians at Stalingrad. But more important are his thoughts about the persecutions of the Jews.

Moshe asked the question:
What can God mean by all the suffering, and why did he not prevent it happening? He also wondered if the anguish they are suffering is a continuing suffering of the past two thousand years, or is it  very different? He came to the conclusion that the earlier sufferings of the Jewish people had been localized. In some areas, Jewish people lived in peace and quiet. The Germans were out to destroy the entire people of Israel. Moshe struggled in anguish for the Jews, he felt guilty that he was not with them. He prays again and again for a miracle to end their suffering.

Moshe was teaching his sisters French, and he was learning Arabic on his own. He dreamed one day to go to Israel, and become an ambassador. But it was all too late.

Moshe, his father and mother were sent to Auschwitz where they were gassed, and disappeared in the smoke of the crematorium, along with millions of other Jews.

Moshe's writings were discovered by his surviving sisters in the cellar of the house in which they hid. The sisters are living today in Israel. I don't know what happened to the son.

As far as I know there are no plays or movies about Moshe Flinker. I felt that it was important to tell his story. The diary can be found on Amazon.

     Aloha
     Grant