Rolnik, Masha, I Must Tell, 1965 — Association of Jews of Vilna and vicinity in Israel

Her first book, "I must Tell," is the diary of a 14-year-old girl from Vilna Ghetto, and later in the Strasdenhof and Stutthof concentration camps.

Masha Rolnikaite was 14 years old when the Nazis occupied her hometown of Vilna. Her father disappeared on the day of the occupation when he went to try to get a car, and she was left with her three brothers and her mother in their apartment. At first they tried to escape, but her little brother found it difficult to walk, they therefore returned home. They were battered by one and another German edict, and eventually arrived at the ghetto, worked in forced labor, suffered from hunger and cold, and were candidates for deportation at any moment.

Rolnikaite documents the first life in the ghetto and then in the various concentration camps, recounting the atrocities she suffered, some at the hand of the Nazis, and some at the hands of the local population. Sections of the diary are written as the events occur and sections are from memory, after she eventually returned to her home and managed to reunite with her sister and her father. The rest of the family was murdered.

From: Children in the Holocaust [Hebrew]