Janina’s Notebooks

Janina Hescheles was only twelve years old when she ran away from Janowska, a Polish death camp, in 1943. The following weeks, she described her experience in her notebooks. They are one of the rare testimonies written by a child during the Shoah. These notebooks – hidden until the end of the war – were published in 1946, and then sunk into oblivion. They were rediscovered in Ukraine in 2011. For Janina Hescheles, her family and several historians around the world, this marked the beginning of an adventure that echoes current events. It has also been an opportunity for Janina – who lives in Israel – to highlight the struggle for peace she has been leading for over forty years.