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The Journal of Helene Berr

by Hélène Berr, David Bellos (Translator, Introduction), Mariette Job (Afterword)

3.99 of 5 stars 3.99 · rating details · 346 ratings · 81 reviews

Not since The Diary of Anne Frank has there been such a book as this; The joyful but ultimately heartbreaking journal of a young Jewish woman in occupied Paris, now being published for the first time, 63 years after her death in a Nazi concentration camp. Born April 7, 1942, Berr, a 21-year-old Jewish student of English literature at the Sorbonne, took up her pen and start...more

Hardcover, 307 pages

Published November 11th 2008 by Weinstein Books (first published January 1st 2008)

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Jul 19, 2012 Julie rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to Julie by: Jeanette aka Generic

Shelves: bio-autobio-memoir, war-conflict, france-french-theme-setting, best-of-2012, read-2012

"...I have a duty to write because other people must know. Every hour of every day there is another painful realization that other folk do not know, do not even imagine, the suffering of other men, the evil that some of them inflict. And I am still trying to make the painful effort to tell the story.

Hélène Berr writes these words on October 10, 1943, a year and a half after the opening entry of The Journal of Hélène Berr. This entry marks a profound change in the emotional and intellectual life of a compassionate, smart, sophisticated but sheltered young woman.

Hélène Berr is one of five children of an upper-middle class Parisian family. Although she is raised by an Ashkenazi Jewish father and Sephardic Jewish mother, religion plays far less a role in her life than secular education. She is a graduate of the Sorbonne, seeking an advanced degree as her journal begins. She is an accomplished musician, linguist and scholar of Western literature. Hélène is curious, articulate and like many young women in the bloom of their early twenties, she loves the attention of men, she adores her many female friends; she lives for the pleasure of weekends in the country and discussing literature in Parisian cafés.

But she is a Jew. It is Occupied Paris, 1942. And this remarkable account by a young woman living through the nightmare of Nazi occupation and French collusion is a unique treasure: rarely are we able to hold in our hands, heart and mind the real-time thoughts and actions of a life in drastic transition.

The obvious comparison to Hélène's journal is The Diary of Anne Frank. The difference is that Hélène is free as she writes, she is able to move about her beloved Paris, she has means and a degree of social freedom. For the reader, this holds a particular pain: we know this spirited woman is doomed, yet we rejoice with her as she gathers flowers at the family's country home in Aubergenville, as she contemplates her future with one of two men who may love her, as she practices Bach and trembles at Keats. Reading, I ache to push her south to Spain, west to England. I whisper "Run, run, Hélène, run while there is still time."

Hélène's journal from April - November 1942 is a slow progression from anecdotes about the impact of war on daily life in Paris to growing indignation and fear at the vulnerability of her Jewish family and friends. The most unspeakable happens - her father is arrested in June 1942 and sent to Drancy, a prison camp just outside the city. Amazingly, he is released a few months later and shortly after that Hélène falls silent, for nearly a year.

It is when she resumes her journal again, in October 1943, that the pretty, flighty girl has become an analytical, hardened woman. The compassion and the appreciation of beauty remain, but Hélène seems resigned to her fate. I found this passage so profound. Who amongst us has not asked how the German people allowed the Holocaust to happen? Could the soldiers of the Occupation all have been monsters? Hélène writes:

'So why do the German soldiers I pass on the street not slap or insult me? Why do they quite often hold the metro door open for me and say "Excuse me, miss" when they pass in front? Why? Because those people do not know, or rather, they have stopped thinking; they just want to obey orders. So they do not even see the incomprehensible illogicality of opening a door for me one day and perhaps deporting me the next day: yet I would still be the same person. They have forgotten the principle of causality.
There is also the possibility that they do not know everything. The atrocious characteristic of this regime is its hypocrisy. They do not know all the horrible details of the persecutions, because there is only a small group of torturers involved, alongside the Gestapo.

Hélène and her parents are arrested in their home in March 1944. Hélène perishes at Bergen-Belsen in November 1944, five days before the camp is liberated by the British.

Hélène regularly gave pages of her journal to a family employee; a surviving family member in turn gave the journal to Hélène's true love, Jean Morawiecki. The translator, David Bellos, shepherded the work to publication in France in 2008 to enormous acclaim. The original manuscript now resides at the beautiful and haunting Mémorial de la Shoah in Paris's Marais district.

Hélène is an extraordinary writer- she has the soul of a poet and the vocabulary of a scholar. Her words are a gift to her readers, her life a sacrifice without sense. We honor her memory by honoring her wish that, by reading what she saw and experienced, we will never forget. (less)

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Jan 19, 2013 Oscar rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: míos, biografía, drama, mainstream, historia-histórico

La lectura del diario de Hélène Berr es una experiencia de las que dejan huella y dejan el corazón encogido. Es imposible no sentirse conmovido y hechizado por esta joven estudiante, por lo que de su vida sabemos en los breves meses durante los que escribió en su diario, pero sobre todo por ese futuro que le fue arrebatado tan atroz e injustamente.

Hélène es una chica francesa, de veintiún años, que vive en París y estudia en la Sorbona. Empieza su diario en abril de 1942, en plena ocupación nazi...more

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Dec 05, 2008 Doria rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Nov 19, 2008 Bap rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: diaries, world-war-ii

My niece, an editor for Weinsten books has recommended this one, a journal kept by a Jewish college student in Paris during the German occupation in WW 2. Heartbreaking. I am stunned anew by the evil of the third Reich and the complicity of the occupied countries in facilitating the final solution.
When the journal begins there is still some normality but as it continues the terror and the evil of the germans and their collaborators become overwhelming and pervasive. The final solution was so ut...more

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Jan 21, 2011 Jeff rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Reading Helene Berr’s journal is, quite simply, a touching, personal, and unexpectedly eye-opening testimony about Paris during World War II. The journal was not meant to be read by a mass audience, per se, so it doesn’t read like a conventional memoir. There are incomplete passages, inexplicable references, and, quite often, page after page of a young woman being … well, a young woman. What is so amazing about this book, though, is (1) to get a first hand narrative of daily life in Paris under...more

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Aug 03, 2011 Susu added it · review of another edition

Shelves: import-visual-bookshelf

I read the Journal in French - side by side with the dictionary. My French is just not good enough to do without and so I have to write this review in English.

Hélène Berr writes about daily life during the occupation - about the mounting pressure and fear - and about the small escapes that daily life could offer.

Some entries sound as if nothing much is wrong - and then the full force of antisemitic laws hits home when she writes about having to wear the yellow star for the first time. About he...more

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Mar 02, 2009 Susan Poling rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: nonfiction, wwii-hitler-judism, biography

It has taken me forever to read this book because it is so heart-wrenching. The Diary of Ann Frank was the this story of a young girl. THIS is the story of a young woman living in Paris during the German Occupation. As a 21-22 year old attending the Sorbonne who becomes more and more mature, Helene eloquently tells of the expeience of living during this period. She writes of her thoughts and beliefs, talking about the blindness of the German population to what the Nazis are doing and the horrors...more

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Jan 03, 2012 Sherah rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: biography, culture, dark, existential, history, philosophical

This journal will haunt me.

I have for years avoided reading anything about WWII in Europe. I'm glad I waited until I was a bit more aware and receptive, even though that's not why it took me so long to go there.

Helene Berr is, for such a young age, astonishingly insightful and brave. She writes about her impending doom with a clear mind and her words echo eerily familiar pains I've felt in my own country, though obviously not as harshly...

"The glorification of violence, pride, sentimentality, th...more

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May 22, 2011 Ali rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is a remarkable book and at times rather unbearable. Helen was writing for herself, she had no future audience in mind when she began her journal in 1942. She talks abiout lunches, studies, music and her new boyfriend as, with her head rather buried in the sand, she carries on her priveliged middle class life. However bit by terrible bit she has to confront the reality of the world around her with increasing fear. She stops writing her journal for a while - resuming it about a year later -...more

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Oct 01, 2009 Ilze rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Reading the words of this Jewish graduate is profound. Not only does she question her faith (she doesn't believe her Jewishness is a 'race' issue and I have to agree), she questions those in power, she shares her humaneness on these pages. That is what is so touching. But as intelligent as she was, it baffles the mind to think that she never knew what "Auschwitz" really meant until she was there herself. Each time a train filled with Jews is "taken away", she wonders what the "krauts" are doing...more

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Nov 25, 2012 Lorri rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: personally-own, holocaust, inspiration, jewish-non-fiction, non-fiction, memoirs

The Journal of Helene Berr, by Helene Berr, and translated by David Bellos is a compelling look at the events of WWII and the German occupation of Paris, that lead up to the deportation of Helene and her parents. It is the personal diary of Helene Berr, beginning April 7, 1942, and ending with the last entry on February 15, 1944. There is also a letter that Helene wrote to her sister, Denise, dated on the day of her (Helene’s) arrest, March 8, 1944.

What makes this a compelling diary is how 21-ye...more The Journal of Helene Berr, by Helene Berr, and translated by David Bellos is a compelling look at the events of WWII and the German occupation of Paris, that lead up to the deportation of Helene and her parents. It is the personal diary of Helene Berr, beginning April 7, 1942, and ending with the last entry on February 15, 1944. There is also a letter that Helene wrote to her sister, Denise, dated on the day of her (Helene’s) arrest, March 8, 1944.

What makes this a compelling diary is how 21-year old Helene presents the months and years to us, never truly expecting her diary to be published. She begins her diary with entries relating to her friends and their involvements with her, entries regarding her boyfriend Gerard. She also describes Paris as spring is approaching. All this is written down during the German occupation, when Helene apparently felt she had the freedom to wander Paris and its surroundings, seemingly unaffected by what was happening around her. Her family was quite well off, and very respected.

Helene was extremely intelligent, talented and gifted, and sensitive. She studied Russian and English Literature at Sorbonne University. She met and fell in love with Jean Morawiecki, and he returned her love. He eventually left to join the “Forces francaises libres, the armed forces of the Free French”. After he left, she stopped writing for almost one year, and began writing diary entries, again. From that point forward, she begins to slowly comprehend the forces that surround her.

Helene’s diary is dramatic in the sense that the first two months or so, deal with her inability to accept the fact that the persecution of Jews was occurring within her very world. She did not want to see the truth before her eyes, even when some of her friends were fleeing or escaping to the unoccupied zones of the south. The harshness and reality began to slowly settle in when she was forced to wear the yellow star.

Her friends and even family members tried to convince Helene and her parents to escape, but to no avail. They wanted to remain behind because they felt it was the courageous and moral thing to do. They were involved with the “Union Generale des Israelites de France (U.G.I.F.)”, and in helping to save Jewish children, and the thought of leaving behind the children that so depended on them was unacceptable in their minds. They had strong ethical beliefs. They were firm in their conviction to remain in Paris.

Helene begins to write about the realities and actualities of events, without sugar-coating them. She wants to document what is happening all around her, and what she has learned.

And, document she does, and then gives the pages of her diary to the family cook, Andre Bardiau, to save for her, in case she survives. In the event she doesn’t, she wanted him to give the diary to Jean Morawiecki. Helene’s wishes were followed, and her diary was given to Jean Morawiecki, after she died in April 1945, in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp five days before its liberation. Jean Morawiecki eventually gave the diary to Mariette Job, Helen’s niece. From there, Mariette Job decided the journal should be printed in book form.

That one young woman was able to pen the unfolding events of the German occupation of Paris, while she was literally within its stronghold is overwhelming to me. In my opinion, it is a story not to be missed. The Journal of Helene Berr belongs in every educational library, and in my opinion, all personal libraries.

I personally own and have read this book.(less)

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Feb 20, 2011 Resa rated it 4 of 5 stars

When I first began this novel I was not looking forward to it, but I am so glad that I read through it and got to know this beautiful woman. My hesitation revolved around the fact that I thought I knew enough about the horrors of the concentration camp, but this diary shed a new perspective on those sorrows.

The journal begins rather slowly, but the reader must know the character of Helene and her life before they can understand how she suffers.

I am surprised that this journal did not become as...more

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Aug 25, 2009 Lotte rated it 4 of 5 stars

I hope everyone will consider reading this recently published translation from the journal of a young French woman in Paris in the early 1940s. Berr is one of four children of a well-educated prominent French family and considers herself more French than Jew. Berr's 2-year journal is difficult to read, as her daily life of family routines, studies at the Sorbonne, evenings of classical music, and romantic encounters begin to feel like desperate attempts at normalcy than like any kind of real lif...more

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Aug 07, 2009 Jeanette rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: nonfiction, 2009, wwii

"It makes me happy to think that if I am taken, Andree will have kept these pages, which are a piece of me, the most precious part, because no other material thing matters to me anymore; what must be rescued is the soul and the memory it contains."

Helene Berr was an intelligent, caring, and highly talented young woman living in Paris during WWII. She graduated from the Sorbonne with a degree in English Language and literature and would have earned further degrees and distinctions if not for anti...more "It makes me happy to think that if I am taken, Andree will have kept these pages, which are a piece of me, the most precious part, because no other material thing matters to me anymore; what must be rescued is the soul and the memory it contains."

Helene Berr was an intelligent, caring, and highly talented young woman living in Paris during WWII. She graduated from the Sorbonne with a degree in English Language and literature and would have earned further degrees and distinctions if not for anti-semitic laws that prevented her from doing so. She was a highly accomplished violinist and in 1941 she became involved with a clandestine group established to save Jewish children from deportation.
Helene began keeping her journal in 1942 and kept writing in it, with a few breaks along the way, until she and her parents were deported in 1944. After spending time at Auschwitz Helene was transferred to Bergan-Belsen where she died, just 5 days before the camp was liberated, after being brutally beaten. Her journal is a vivid eyewitness account detailing many of the acts of persecution perpetrated against the Jews living in France under Nazi rule.
Jean Morawiecki, the man Helene probably would have married had she survived the war, said this of Helene, "Beings like Helene-and I'm not sure there are any like her-are not only strong and beautiful in themselves. They spread a sense of strength to others who are able to understand them. For me, Helene was the symbol of strength-a radiant strength composed of attraction, beauty, harmony, persuasion, confidence, and loyalty. It has all vanished. Her death takes away the woman I loved and, even more, a soul that was close to my own. She has taken with her all that I could give her-my confidence, my love, my energy."

I believe Helene's words express who she was better than I could ever attempt to do. I recommend reading the journal.
I would have liked to see some additional foot notes to help me know what some of the events and incidents that Helene referred to were. A couple of times I found myself googling the date to find out what was going on in Paris at that time. I also think it would have helped to read the two sections at the end of the journal about Helene and Paris during the war before I read the journal. Having that background information would probably have enhanced my reading.(less)

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Mar 16, 2011 Sara rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Though incredibly sad, I'm loving this beautifully poetic piece of history. I find that Helene is really inside my heart and head, as I too am a young girl growing into an adulthood I am not all that keen for. Berr writes so beautifully.

I am tempted to give it four stars, but I feel I'm missing out on an important element of the novel as I have to read the translated English version. I also find myself confused and unable to read in an entirely linear fashion. A statement such as '(someone) died...more

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Apr 20, 2009 Nancy rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: april-2009, holocaust-adult, memoir

Helene Berr was a young, well-to-do assimilated French Jew. She writes here in her diary the details of her daily life: friends, music, studies at the Sorbonne, her love life--and increasingly of the press against normality by the Nazi occupation during WWII. She writes of her work trying to rescue children whose parents have been rounded up by the Nazis, downplaying her role and the risks she took. Her fiance, a non-Jew, had fled to fight the Nazis, and as the noose grew tighter around her neck...more

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Nov 24, 2008 Steve rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Students of the Holocaust

Recommended to Steve by: Paul Ingram at Prairie Lights in Iowa City gave me this book

As the son of Holocaust survivors, Holocaust books are like a drug to me. I can never read enough of them. This newly printed memoir of occupied Paris clearly shows the ever shrinking world of everyday life under Nazi rule, the denials of a smart Jewish woman with a taste for English literature and an academic star at the Sorbornne. With the hindsight we have, we want to shake her and tell her to leave, take her mother and dad with her, grab her sister and just go. But she comes from a prominent...more

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Nov 10, 2011 Beverly rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is the diary of a young well-to-do French Jewish woman kept during the German occupation of France in WWII. The first half of the diary takes place in 1942 and depicts your typical young woman interests; for Helene that was her education and the man she loved. There are a few insights into what was happening in France in 1942. Particularly interesting is Helene's thoughts on having to wear the star for the first time and the reactions of the people she meets while wearing it.

Helene stopped...more

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Apr 02, 2009 Núria rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2009, 4-muy-buenos, literatura-en-frances, no-ficcion, mios, siglo-xx

El Diario de Hélène Berr empieza contando como ha ido a casa de la portera de Paul Valéry a buscar un libro dedicado que se atrevió a pedirle al famoso poeta y termina con las palabras "Horror, Horror, Horror..." Al principo parece que escribe sólo por ella pero poco a poco va cambiando y acaba escribiendo para dejar constancia de las atrocidades que pasan a su alrededor.

El diario empieza la primavera de 1942 y París está ocupado pero sigue siendo precioso. Hélène va a la universidad, lee, qued...more El Diario de Hélène Berr empieza contando como ha ido a casa de la portera de Paul Valéry a buscar un libro dedicado que se atrevió a pedirle al famoso poeta y termina con las palabras "Horror, Horror, Horror..." Al principo parece que escribe sólo por ella pero poco a poco va cambiando y acaba escribiendo para dejar constancia de las atrocidades que pasan a su alrededor.

El diario empieza la primavera de 1942 y París está ocupado pero sigue siendo precioso. Hélène va a la universidad, lee, queda con sus amigos, va de pícnic al campo con su familia, disfruta de la música, se enamora. Es una chica llena de vida y leemos sobre su felicidad con el corazón encogido porque sabemos lo que vendrá después. El primer golpe es la obligación de todos los judíos de llevar la estrella amarilla y todo empeora cuando detienen a su padre. Ella sigue intentando llevar una vida tan normal como sea posible, pero el cerco se va estrechando cada vez más hasta hacerse irrespirable.

A finales de 1942 deja de escribir en su diario y prácticamente pasa un año antes que vuelva a escribir. Cuando lo vuelve a hacer ya todo ha cambiado: ya no hay esperanza, ha visto demasiadas veces como le han arrebatado personas que quería, ahora sólo le queda esperar a que vengan a detenerla también a ella. Este hiatus marca claramente las dos partes del diario: la primera es descriptiva y está llena de vida, la segunda es mucho más reflexiva y está llena de dolor.

Confieso que he llorado. Con el epílogo. Conocía su final, pero ha sido ver escrito que murió en un campo de concentración y empezar a llorar, porque después de tantas páginas he llegado a conocer a Hélène. Hèlene es una chica llena de vida, inteligente, apasionada, valiente, lúcida y que lee un montón y que escribe que es una delicia. Es imposible no llegar a querer a Hélène. Y al fin y al cabo es de esto de lo que trata el Diario: de que no podemos cerrar los ojos ante el sufrimiento, ni siquiera es aceptable compadecernos de los que sufren, porque la compasión no lleva a nada, lo único aceptable es sufrir con los que sufren. (less)

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Feb 18, 2009 Christen rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to Christen by: ReadingGroupGuides.com

Shelves: discussion-books, non-fiction, wwii, historical-fiction

It was very interesting "watching" this time frame (1942-44) from the viewpoint of someone experiencing it at the time, versus a fiction story where the author knows the eventual outcome.

The racism against the Jews was so gradual and incremental, it was hard to see the final outcome coming.

The whole journal was really good and these are a few of the passages/thoughts that stood out to me:

pg. 201: "When I arrived at home, I found another postcard from that unfortunately P.O.W. who asked me if I h...more It was very interesting "watching" this time frame (1942-44) from the viewpoint of someone experiencing it at the time, versus a fiction story where the author knows the eventual outcome.

The racism against the Jews was so gradual and incremental, it was hard to see the final outcome coming.

The whole journal was really good and these are a few of the passages/thoughts that stood out to me:

pg. 201: "When I arrived at home, I found another postcard from that unfortunately P.O.W. who asked me if I had made any progress in my inquiries about his twelve-year old son, about whom he has heard nothing for more than a year."

pg. 202: "The Germans, for their part, have been subjected to a process of restupidification for a generation now (it's a recurrent phenomenon). They have no intelligence left at all. But we could have hoped it might be different among us." [The whole page is good:]

pg. 204: "Can those people speak of Christian charity when precisely what they do not know is the meaning of fraternity and human sympathy? Do they have the right to claim to be the heirs of Christ, of that Christ who was the greatest socialist the world has known, and whose doctrine was founded on equality and brotherhood? They don't have any idea what brotherhood is." [This statement refers to her fellow Frenchmen who either turn a blind eye to events or even participate:].

pg. 246: "What a shame that one half of humanity is manufacturing evil and a tiny minority is trying to put it right!"

I also enjoyed reading about the roundup of the French Jews by the French police force (I shouldn't say "enjoyed", but it was interesting hearing about it from a first hand point of view. Especially after having just read "Sarah's Key" this summer.).

Helene Berr was an amazing, brave woman. Many, many lives of Jewish children were saved by her efforts. I am glad her journal was published so that she can get the credit she deserves and that people can celebrate who she was and what she stood for. She deserves to live on in history.

My only complaint is that I would have appreciated more footnotes and more information about what became of the survivors (her sister and neice, fiance, etc.).(less)

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Apr 14, 2013 Eddy Allen rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: arts-and-historical

On April 7, 1942, Hélène Berr, a 21-year-old Jewish student of English literature at the Sorbonne, took up her pen and started to keep a journal, writing with verve and style about her everyday life in Paris — about her studies, her friends, her growing affection for the “boy with the grey eyes,” about the sun in the dewdrops, and about the effect of the growing restrictions imposed by France’s Nazi occupiers. Berr brought a keen literary sensibility to her writing, a talent that renders the sto...more

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Sep 22, 2009 Marilyn rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Journal of a young, 20-something Jewish-French woman in Paris during World War II. Began like a current blog--parties, shopping, school, meals--with family and friends--self-centered, self-conscious, revolving around people the reader neither knows nor cares about. Half-way in, the journal becomes more serious, more reflective, as the circumstances for Jews in France change. The most compelling thing about this book is what is not in it. There is the over-arching sense of terrible irony. The rea...more

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Jun 02, 2010 Readnponder rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Helene was a student at the Sorbonne. Although Jewish, her family was well-to-do and thoroughly French, living in Paris. Her father directed a chemical company. The journal covers 1942-44, up until Helene's arrest and deportation, eventually ending up at Bergen Belson where she died in April 1945. Her journal survives because she turned it over bit by bit to the care of the family cook.

Her diary starts with rather trite musings about two young men in her life and how she plans on spending her we...more

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Dec 07, 2010 Mariel rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Ik was als kind al bijzonder getroffen door het Achterhuis, maar dit boek toont het leven en de gedachten van een iets ouder en zeer belezen meisje dat niet ondergedoken leefde maar lang relatief 'vrij' kon rondlopen in Parijs. Ondanks al onze kennis blijft het stuitend hoe mensen toen behandeld werden door andere mensen, hoe perfide dat uitroeiingssysteem was, wat het effect was op de slachtoffers ervan, en op zij die er 'maar' getuige van waren...
Het zet aan tot nadenken, ook over het heden. H...more

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Oct 13, 2011 Ariana rated it 5 of 5 stars

"I have a duty to write because other people must know. Every hour of every day there is another painful realization that other folk do not know, do not even imagine, the suffering of other men, the evil that some of them inflict. And I am still trying to make the painful effort to tell the story...For how will humanity every be healed unless all its rottenness is exposed? How will the world be cleansed unless it is made to understand the full extent of the evil it is doing? Everything comes dow...more

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Dec 16, 2012 Shonna Froebel rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: translations

The first portion of this journal, from 1942, was written as a private diary. Then there is a gap of about nine months and the second portion from later 1943 through early 1944 is written as a record of what is happening around her and for her fiancé should she not be here when he returns.
Berr is a university student at the Sorbonne, from a well-to-do family who have been settled in France for generations. She struggles with falling in love for the first time, determines to do the right thing in...more

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Oct 12, 2012 Courtney rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: read-for-class, adult, books-i-own, nonfiction, stand-alone, 4-stars

I don't know how to actually rate someone's journal since it's her life, her thoughts, her memories. The things that happened to the people around her was just horrifying. She had many deep interpretations on what she was experiencing. I'm around the age she was, and I can't imagine living through that at all. She kept such optimism the whole time, even when she wrote the letter to her sister on the day she was arrested, she believed she was going home. And, maybe she would have had things playe...more

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Jul 01, 2012 Yoake rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Si esto ocurriera, si estas líneas son leídas, se verá claro que esperaba mi destino; no que lo haya aceptado de antemano, porque no sé hasta qué punto puede llegar mi resistencia física y moral bajo el peso de la realidad, sino que me lo esperaba.

Y quizá el que lea estas líneas tendrá también una conmoción en este momento preciso, como siempre he tenido yo leyendo en un autor muerto hace mucho tiempo una alusión a su muerte.

Así escribe Hélène Berr tras analizar el poema Esta mano viva de John K...more Si esto ocurriera, si estas líneas son leídas, se verá claro que esperaba mi destino; no que lo haya aceptado de antemano, porque no sé hasta qué punto puede llegar mi resistencia física y moral bajo el peso de la realidad, sino que me lo esperaba.

Y quizá el que lea estas líneas tendrá también una conmoción en este momento preciso, como siempre he tenido yo leyendo en un autor muerto hace mucho tiempo una alusión a su muerte.

Así escribe Hélène Berr tras analizar el poema Esta mano viva de John Keats en su diario. Corre el año 1943 en la Francia ocupada por los nazis, lo que implica que la señorita Berr, de 20 años y de origen judío, debe llevar la insignia amarilla, no puede viajar en ciertos vagones de metro y tiene prohibido presentarse a una oposición. Es licenciada en Inglés por la Sorbona y tiene un título de enseñanza superior de lengua y literatura inglesas que no le sirve para nada. Su frustración es evidente:

Hoy he pensado en el metro: ¿mucha gente se dará cuenta de lo que habrá sido tener 20 años en este horrible tormento, la edad en que estás preparada para recibir la belleza de la vida, en que estás dispuesta a confiar en los humanos? ¿Se dará cuenta del mérito (lo digo sin vergüenza, porque soy perfectamente consciente de lo que soy), del mérito que habrá tenido conservar un juicio imparcial y una dulzura de corazón a través de esta pesadilla? Creo que nosotros estamos un poco más cerca de la virtud que muchos otros.

Al principio, en el 42, sus reflexiones son algo superficiales. Tiene novio pero está empezando a enamorarse de Jean Moriawecki, al que dedicará muchas páginas de su diario en una especie de diálogo en el tiempo. Su padre es detenido y enviado al campo de Drancy, y cuando le liberan, Hélène enmudece un año. A su regreso algo ha cambiado. Ya no cree que si los otros comprendieran todo el asunto se solucionaría. Ahora tiene dudas. A medida que las deportaciones aumentan, ese odio que siempre ha querido evitar también lo hace. Poco a poco, sus reflexiones dan paso a simples testimonios de lo que ocurre, como si sintiera que su tiempo se acaba. Las últimas palabras que aparecen en el diario son las famosas: ¡Horror! ¡Horror! ¡Horror!

A Hélène Berr la detienen junto a sus padres en marzo de 1944. A su padre lo envenena un médico en Monowitz en septiembre. Su madre muere en la cámara de gas un mes después. Ella es evacuada de Auschwitz a Bergen-Belsen y muere de tifus unos días antes de que los ingleses liberen el campo. Su resistencia física la ayudó, de la moral no sabemos nada. Tal y como vaticinó, sus palabras causan conmoción en quien las lee, pero no solo por el augurio de su muerte, sino por su acierto:

Tenía una necesidad absoluta de contarle a alguien El osito Winnie. Cuando he empezado he visto que no le interesaba a nadie. Y he continuado, aun a sabiendas de que forzaba la atención ajena, consciente de que les aburría. He vencido la repugnancia que me producía la sensación de ser aburrida. Pero no comprendía que los demás desprecien El osito Winnie. Es el problema eterno: compartir con alguien mi entusiasmo, para mí no existe alegría si no puedo comunicarla a otro. Ahora estoy privada de todos aquellos con los que podía hacerlo, ante todo Jean.

Querida Hélène, aunque tú no llegaste a saberlo nunca, no estuviste privada de compartir el entusiasmo. Lo hiciste unos cincuenta años después, por siempre y con millones de personas que sí comprenden. Aunque quizá demasiado tarde…(less)

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Nov 16, 2010 Paula rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: french, non-fiction, best-reads-of-2010, memoir

Although I read this book in French, it is available in English translation and I highly recommend it. My reaction is best summarized by the French word bouleversée, which means deeply moved, utterly distressed, shattered. Although I abhor any manipulation of my emotions on the part of a novelist or filmmaker, the experience of reading this young woman's journal was quite different. Perhaps it comes down to the authenticity of witness and her commitment to recording what she was thinking, experi...more Although I read this book in French, it is available in English translation and I highly recommend it. My reaction is best summarized by the French word bouleversée, which means deeply moved, utterly distressed, shattered. Although I abhor any manipulation of my emotions on the part of a novelist or filmmaker, the experience of reading this young woman's journal was quite different. Perhaps it comes down to the authenticity of witness and her commitment to recording what she was thinking, experiencing and seeing as a young Jewish woman in a Paris subjected not only to the nightmare of occupation but also that of collaboration, as well as complicity in the form of passivity, indifference, & the closing of eyes and shutting of doors to the suffering of others. At the same time, there are many who take great risks, who act selflessly and with compassion. The journal begins just as Jews in France are ordered to wear the yellow star in public and as Hélène meets fellow-student Jean Morawiecki for the first time, the young man who will become her fiance: a love story truncated by the war (Jean leaves Paris to join the French forces in North Africa) and matured within the context of increasingly harsh restrictions imposed on Hélène. The pace of arrests and deportations picks up. First, it is the foreign Jews who are taken, then all Jews. Finally, there is no longer any safe zone, no Free France, no protected status anywhere.
Certain passages, certain of Hélène's thoughts regarding her decision to remain in Paris (not entirely her decision, since she was living with her parents throughout) and not try to escape made me think of Simone Weil, particularly certain references Berr makes to her reading of the teachings of Christ. But unlike Weil, Berr isn't obsessed with self-abnegation. And, so, her concern for the suffering of others, her refusal to turn away from that suffering, which is also hers, is both more palatable to me and more heroic. Early on, she writes "Because, even in suffering, liberty is a consolation."
Hélène's arguments with herself over staying or leaving fuel a longtime obsession of mine with this question. She resists abandoning her official life (French intellectual, student at the Sorbonne, accomplished musician) for an unofficial one. She resists accepting the identity being imposed on her by History, that of the victim and of the one apart, an identity assigned by way of an attribute (the word "Jew"). To acknowledge the label Jew, to wear the yellow star, to obey the Nazis' increasingly insane and unjust laws becomes both an act of capitulation and one of solidarity. And, it is from within this fraught and contradictory space that Hélène thinks and acts. The question she wrestles with is whether it is more courageous, more "right," to stay or to leave. In any case, it is clear that she feels she cannot leave as long as her parents and other loved ones stay. For her, compassion, being "with" in suffering, is more important than saving her own life. It remains unclear whether there were realistic opportunities for Hélène and her family to flee--at first, many deportees were apprehended attempting to cross the border into the "free" zone; later, after Germany occupied all of France, escape would have been even more difficult. Hélène doesn't discuss the possibility of hiding in Paris except when toward the end, after repeated warnings of raids, her father decides that they won't spend nights in their own home and instead take refuge in the homes of their housekeeper and other friends. It is after a night when they fail to do so and instead remain at home that they are apprehended, detained and, finally, deported to Auschwitz. After evacuation to Bergen-Belsen in November, 1944 , Hélène, sick with typhus, is murdered by a guard in May, 1945 just 5 days before liberation of the camp.
The utter absurdity of having to make impossible choices brings to mind a nightmare I once had: "I’m waiting in a car for an explosion that is set to go off in a garage in front of the car. This seems to be a group suicide, with a male “leader.” I don’t know how I became involved in this, but my adult son is also in the car, seated in the rear. A toddler with a mop of black hair is cavorting around nearby. We try to shoo him away from the car, but he doesn’t understand and is playful. Suddenly, I jump out of the car, grab the child and run. As I run uphill away from the car, the toddler morphs into a still hairless infant. I reach the limit of my uphill flight and turn to the right, hoping that I’ve gotten far enough away from the car to save the child from the blast. As I contemplate how to get through a neighbor’s hedge, I hear an explosion go off behind me and realize, horrified, that my own son has remained behind me in that car."
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Jul 21, 2011 Michele rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This book is a diary of a young Jewish woman in Paris during the German occupation. It starts in 1942 and continues until 1944. She gives details of the arrests, laws/codes that are made against the Jews, and the general atmostphere of fear, resentment, and anger.

At the beginning of the diary, Helene discusses college, classes, friends, and the men she finds attractive. She can't quite decide between two particular guys for a while. Following 1942, she takes a break from writing and resumes in...more

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About Hélène Berr

Jewish Hélène Berr kept a diary during World War II that has been published in French and translated by David Bellos into English.

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“This book made me feel strangely awkward, because I'm afraid of finding my own story in it. I take books too seriously.” — 2 people liked it

“Perhaps I was born to be a worrier? When I was girl, I always found calm contentment and perfect enjoyment repulsive; I was always discontented. But after this ocean of suffering I shall never be at ease again, I shall never resume my better self in selfish joy.
Yet I don't wallow in it. I don't have a morbid streak, not like in keats's poem: "Come then, Sorrow! / Sweetest Sorrow!" Because no one can deny that I have experienced real suffering.
What I mean is that it seems to me there is more sincerity in pain that joy.” — 2 people liked it

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