CHELSEY  l  WORLD WAR II DIARIES

Diary excerpts

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Emily Coen's World War II Diary

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~ The following account of Emilia Coen and her family’s lives are fiction, with the exception of some dates and events which are true. The rest is created life for her. I hope you enjoy reading! ~

September 11, 1935
   Tonight was a night of hardship for myself and my family. The people they call Nazis, who are directed by Adolf Hitler, declared what they call racial laws. When we first heard that term we weren’t sure what to think of it. Stuart and I have been discussing the topic with Isak while trying to keep Felicia and young Alberto away from it. Felicia is too soft-hearted to handle such things and Alberto, much too young.

November 3, 1935
   . . . These new laws are going to affect the Jewish community greatly. They are going to separate us from the Germans politically, socially, and legally. They are going to make our lives so hard. Because the Nazis had our family business print these papers, we thought to make money off of them. Money we could put away and save. The Nazis had a different plan. They didn’t pay us a penny and they didn’t sell the papers for a profit either. They just threw them into the streets for people to pick up and read.

November 11, 1938
   This is, well, very difficult for me to write. On November 9th-10th, the Nazis burned our Jewish synagogues, they destroyed so many businesses owned by Jewish peoples, including our business. They took away so many young men, and worst part is, they took my Isak. I don’t know where they took him, but the Nazis come rushing into the house and asked for the men who were over 17. They took Isak, but thankfully Stuart was [not] in the shop at the time, so they don’t have him too. The only thing that worries me is I haven’t seen Stuart since those nights.    . . . Felicia was very upset when they took Isak away. She never told Isak once, but she loves him very much. She is such a sweet girl and her feelings run very deeply in her. Loosing Isak is going to be really [difficult] for her. I don’t know if or when she’ll fully recover.    Alberto, it seems, is too young to completely understand what happened as he hardly seems affected. He asks constantly where Isak is, but I don’t have the heart to tell him the truth. Alberto’s innocence is really bothering Felicia. She is so hurt she can’t see that he is just too young to see everything happening.

November 20, 1938
   The Nazis have wasted no time in doing something with the rest of us who survived those awful nights. They came into my home and told me and my children to pack only necessary items. They never told us where we were being taken or what would happen to us once we got there. They took us to places they call ghettos. Places where the people are packed into small homes and forced to wear arm bands with a yellow star on them. The bands are to show to all that we are Jewish. The ghettos are still in our town, but far from everything we know...

December 19, 1940
   This is the best Christmas we have had in the past three years! It’s not yet Christmas, but Isak has returned home and is now living with us! I’ll tell more about when he came home:    It was just the time of day when we all come home from work, and I was just starting supper. It’s not very often that we get visitors in the ghetto so the knock on the door worried myself, Joane, and Maria. They took the children to the kitchen while I went to answer the door. When I opened the door, a dirty man stood there. He had a smile on his face like I had never seen before. I was puzzled, and [not] until I heard him speak, did I know it was Isak. He said, “Mama! It’s me! Don’t you know your own son?” That was when I knew. I brought him to the kitchen and it was a joyous family reunion. . . He was carrying a stack of worn, dirty, and torn papers and he asked where his father was. At this Felicia broke into tears and it took me a few minutes to be able to tell him. For the next hour after Isak heard the news, he wept for his father. When he came to himself again, he showed me the papers he had. They were letters written to Stuart from Isak while he was in the camp. These are some of his letters:

Dear Papa,
   The days are long and the work is hard. I hope you and mama have an easier life. I am fit, so the work is less of a burden, but it is still tearing at me little piece by little piece. I’ll try to explain the work as I have seen it so far. They organize us into different kommandos. Some who had a profession in bricklaying build buildings. There are also electricians, blacksmiths, and others here too. The other kommandos are usually people unloading many things from trucks to rail cars. Once we carried 200 pound sacks of wheat and oats to barges on a river. The smaller and weaker people here have such problems. I don’t understand this place at all.
                                              Your devoted son,
                                                    Isak

“I always thought that this war was terrible, as any war is, but knowing the details of what happened made me think twice. Now I see two points, instead of only one...I see the Germans suffered too...they had families that didn’t want this to happen...they lost many people too.” ...