"When I write" Jewish "does not translate my thoughts, because to me there is no such distinction: I do not feel different from others, nunca llegaré a considerarme parte de un grupo humano segregado, quizá por esto sufro tanto, porque ya no comprendo. Sufro al ver la maldad humana. Sufro al ver cómo el mal se abate sobre la humanidad: pero como siento que no formo parte de ningún grupo racial religioso, humano (porque siempre implica orgullo), sólo me sostienen mis luchas y mis reacciones, mi conciencia personal." En este hermoso párrafo se contiene la esencia principal del Diario de Hélène Berr, un libro tan real como la vida misma, y por ello emotivo y cargado de un significado que pocas obras pueden alcanzar. Junto al famoso Diario de Ana Frank, constituye uno de los most revealing documents on the persecution of Jews during the dark years of Nazism, in this case in the German-occupied Paris.
Hélène wrote this diary in April 1942 and March 1944. Belonging to a Jewish family, she and her siblings were all born in Paris, and his father had even fought in the service of France during the First World War. This is important to understand why Helen, as she herself admits, does not perceive as their own Jewish identity. She feels a girl again, a European or French like so many, but the suffering of other Jews will feel closer to this group I would have liked at first.
Hélène is a brilliant student at the Sorbonne when Paris is occupied by the Nazis during the Second World War. Music lover and avid reader, she Hélène will darken the city that much light and happiness he has brought so far with the presence of the Germans and the publication of the first measures against the Jews. His world of classes, lectures and meetings with friends, concerts and tours of environments such as the Luxembourg Gardens, begins to crumble in an expedited manner, although she tries to maintain normalcy in his life as far as possible. To this helps Jean Morawiecki the presence of a young student which falls in love with Hélène and will be the final recipient of the Journal .
One of the first laws passed against the Jews is the obligation to wear the famous yellow star sewn into clothing. Hélène takes from the beginning, because he thinks it is a sign of courage, solidarity with those who carry it, but not because you feel too identified with it. In this regard we are told, in the entry for June 8, 1942: "It's the first day I feel really on vacation. Makes a sunny day, very fresh after yesterday's storm also (...) is the first day that I will wear the yellow star. Are the two aspects of modern life: the freshness, beauty, youth of life, embodied by this morning clear, barbarism and evil, represented by the yellow star. "
But the first blow which will shaken the foundations of his optimism is his father's arrest and deportation to the Drancy camp in June 1942. Although it will be released later, this is the beginning of the nightmare for Berr. Hélène be involved then more than ever in helping others, working with other young people in a solidarity organization dedicated to locating and protecting Jewish children whose parents have been deported. Gradually the pages of the newspaper was overshadowed. Hélène still trying to live within the nomal, but the departure of her beloved Jean, who left Paris to fight in Africa with the Free French forces and the growing fear of deportation, they fill their testimony of reflections on mankind of the young reaches a height worthy of praise. On the other hand, it is surprising that the literary quality off these pages. Some paragraphs are really touching and, above all, contain an astounding capacity for analysis in a girl her age:
"I have a duty to write, because we need to let others know. Each hour of the day is repeated the painful experience is to realize that others do not, do not even imagine the suffering of other men and the evil that some inflict on others. And I'm trying to tell this painful effort. Because it is a duty, is perhaps the only one who can meet (...) For how to heal mankind, but first to reveal all their corruption, how to purify the world, but making him understand the magnitude of the evil he commits? "
"I have a fear of not being here when Jean returns (...) But it is not fear, because I have no fear of that could possibly happen, I would accept it, because I have accepted many hard things and I have a character who rebels against a penalty. But I fear that my beautiful dream can not be completed, done. No fear for me, but for how great it would have been ".
Finally
Hélène fears are confirmed. In March 1944 he was arrested and deported with their parents, first to Drancy and then Auschwitz. Three die shortly before the end of the war. Hélène was then 23 years. Through these pages, their testimony and their feelings still survive, leaving only a guess of the suffering that accompanied so many people during those fateful years. His Journal is certainly a lesson in humanity from which all can and should learn.
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