Mary Berg, or rather Mirriam Wattenberg, was sent to the Warsaw ghetto as a teenager. From the beginning, she wrote down in her diaries what she witnessed there. Thanks to her, we can learn about the fate of many people who stayed with her in an isolated part of the city. The commemorated stories often concern difficult and tragic experiences, which we can read about from the perspective of a sixteen-year-old girl.
In the ghetto she was treated better than others. It’s all because of citizenship
Mary Berg, or Mirriam Wattenberg, was born in 1924 in Łódź. She was the daughter of an antiquarian and an American mother. Both she and her mother had American citizenship, and after the explosion she moved to Warsaw with her entire family. They counted on protection from the consulate. However, American citizenship helped the girl in the Warsaw ghetto, where she was sent when she was sixteen. They received better housing conditions there, and the American flag that Mary wore on her clothes meant that she was treated better than others. Not only did she have access to every part of the ghetto, but it also protected her from aggression and violence. Therefore, it was easier for her to be a silent observer of many events that she wrote about in the books she wrote. We can find there not only notes about what life was like for a teenager in the Warsaw Ghetto, but also Mary documented important historical events in them. One of them was the destruction of Janusz Korczak’s Orphan Home, which she witnessed.
She described her story in numerous diaries. Years later, they were published in the form of a book
In January 1943, Mary Berg was sent to the Vittel internment camp, from where she managed to leave for New York after a few months. This was done as part of an exchange led by the United States, which freed several German prisoners. However, Mary still had valuable books with her, which in 1944 Szmuel Lajba Shneiderman decided to publish in the form of a book. However, from year to year, Mary Berg appeared in public less and less often and did not want to comment on published memoirs. She died in 2013 in York.
Source: Gazeta
Bruce is a talented author and journalist with a passion for entertainment . He currently works as a writer at the 247 News Agency, where he has established himself as a respected voice in the industry.
