Dear Mama and Papa,

I know you’ll never get to read this, but my diary is all I have left now, and it comforts me to write to you. I want to tell you that I can’t go on any longer. This isn’t life. They took you away from me and I don’t know anyone anymore. I look around and I see tiny children dying in the streets, a brokenhearted old lady kneeling over her son’s body, cradling in her arms the head with a hole in the center. I want to look away, leave, but I can’t. Everywhere it’s the same.

Today I watched autumn leaves get plucked off thin branches by invisible hands and swirl away through the air, and I wondered, are we as insignificant and helpless as these leaves lost in the wind? Are we so easily swept away, and stripped of everything? There are no easy answers. But I decided that I would rather be a leaf lost in the wind than one crushed beneath merciless feet.

I think by this time you’ve already left this nightmare, for good. That’s why I’m doing this. Because I want to be with you. I won’t let any Nazis take me away like they took you away. When I am finished this letter, I will be done with this world. I’m on the top floor of the building. I wish I could see you one last time. I’m trying to be brave, but it’s so hard. See, my hand is shaking so badly I can hardly read what I’m writing.

I look at this empty place and remember all that we lost, and I hope that where I’m going, where you are, I’ll find everything all over again. I will always be haunted by the past, yet freed by it. And now, I can’t say goodbye, though I know I’ll be seeing you soon. I’ll see you on the other side of swastikas, bullet-ridden bodies, crowded rooms, the stench of decay, sidewalks with ugly stains of blood that a thousand storms could not wash away. I’m going to leave all this behind and be with you again, and I can think of nothing more beautiful.

Love always,
Your daughter.