Would you want the world to read your diary...?
Polish girl's Holocaust diary unveiled
This beautiful girl is Rutka Laskier. Or rather, was - Rutka died in Auschwitz, and we'd never heard of her if her childhood-friend hadn't released Rutka's diary now, more than sixty years after her death.
From the extracts that have been released to the public, one can tell that her diary - just like Anne Frank's - is a mixture of witness-reports of the Nazi's atrocities and personal, intimate thoughts. It's no surprise the released extracts were "Nazi kills baby with bare hands" and "Rutka's sexual awakening" - leave it to the press to pick the "juicy bits".
While I don't deny that this diary is of importance to historians, it's also the diary of a 14-year old girl who, I have a wild guess here, wouldn't have wanted the world to read her most personal private thoughts. From all I can tell, it doesn't offer anything new from a historical perspective, and Rutka's private thoughts are nobody's business. So by all means, let the scientists read it and analyse it - that the ghetto was one of the circles of hell can't be big news to anybody. Her family certainly has a right to read her thoughts as well.
But I can't see why the public should be allowed to read this. I'd wish some respect would be shown to that 14-year old girl , and that her dignity wasn't stripped off her again, so many years after her death.