The Warsaw Diary of Adam Czerniakow: Prelude to Doom

Rating:
Summary: Worth the read--but get the background first
Review: This is the daily diary of the man who was the head of the Judenrat (Jewish Council) in Warsaw during the Nazi occupation and most of the ghetto period. Czerniakow was misunderstood by a lot of people, and to avoid this I suggest some background reading about the ghetto first (Emanuel Ringelblum's Notes from the Warsaw Ghetto, Bogdan Wojdowski's Bread for the Departed, John Hersey's The Wall (fiction)). This is because Czerniakow does not give a lot of detail about life in the ghetto (and occupied Warsaw before the ghetto) for the ordinary person. It does not at all mean he was unaware of conditions; he was trying to do an impossible job and please everyone at the same time: the ghetto residents, the other council members, the profiteers, the Polish city administration, the German army, and the SS. That he accomplished any positive goals at all is remarkable and his story must be looked at from that perspective. It comes across clearly that he acted according to his conscience and put his personal concerns last. Without the introductions and the supplementary notes the diary might be difficult to understand, as Czerniakow did not always put down full names or explanations and kept entries brief. It was suggested he may have been afraid of it falling into the wrong hands with good reason. Therefore, I would say it takes a reader with some knowledge of the ghetto period and the Nazi occupation of Poland to get the fullest understanding from this book. I do on that basis give it the highest recommendation.