Moshe Ze'ev Flinker (Maurice Wolf Flinker) was a

Jew Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, religion, and community are highly inte ...

ish youth born in

The Hague The Hague ( ) is the capital city of the South Holland province of the Netherlands. With a population of over half a million, it is the third-largest city in the Netherlands. Situated on the west coast facing the North Sea, The Hague is the c ...

on October 9, 1926 and killed in

Bergen Belsen Bergen-Belsen (), or Belsen, was a Nazi concentration camp in what is today Lower Saxony in northern Germany, southwest of the town of Bergen near Celle. Originally established as a prisoner of war camp, in 1943, parts of it became a concentr ...

by the

Nazi regime Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a totalitarian dictat ...

in 1944. He was the son of Eliezer Noah Flinker of Poland, who had migrated to the Netherlands and subsequently become a wealthy businessman. Following the 1940

Battle of the Netherlands The German invasion of the Netherlands (), otherwise known as the Battle of the Netherlands (), was a military campaign, part of Battle of France, Case Yellow (), the Nazi German invasion of the Low Countries (Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Neth ...

, the family left

for

Belgium Belgium, officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. Situated in a coastal lowland region known as the Low Countries, it is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeas ...

to evade

Nazi Nazism (), formally named National Socialism (NS; , ), is the far-right politics, far-right Totalitarianism, totalitarian socio-political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Germany. During H ...

rule and the rounding up of

Jews Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...

by the

Gestapo The (, ), Syllabic abbreviation, abbreviated Gestapo (), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe. The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of F ...

. The Flinkers stayed in

Brussels Brussels, officially the Brussels-Capital Region, (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) is a Communities, regions and language areas of Belgium#Regions, region of Belgium comprising #Municipalit ...

, Belgium until their arrest in 1944, whereupon Moshe and his parents were deported to

Auschwitz Auschwitz, or Oświęcim, was a complex of over 40 concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland (in a portion annexed into Germany in 1939) during World War II and the Holocaust. It consisted of Auschw ...

. Together with his father, Moshe was relocated first to , and then to

Bergen-Belsen Bergen-Belsen (), or Belsen, was a Nazi concentration camp in what is today Lower Saxony in Northern Germany, northern Germany, southwest of the town of Bergen, Lower Saxony, Bergen near Celle. Originally established as a prisoner of war camp, ...

, where they both died in January 1945. Flinker began writing a diary in 1941. The diary was saved by his siblings and published in

Hebrew Hebrew (; ''ʿÎbrit'') is a Northwest Semitic languages, Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family. A regional dialect of the Canaanite languages, it was natively spoken by the Israelites and ...

Yad Vashem Yad Vashem (; ) is Israel's official memorial institution to the victims of Holocaust, the Holocaust known in Hebrew language, Hebrew as the (). It is dedicated to preserving the memory of the Jews who were murdered; echoing the stories of the ...

in 1958. An English translation was published by Yad Vashem in 1965, titled ''Young Moshe's Diary'', subtitled ''The spiritual torment of a Jewish boy in Nazi Europe''; a second edition followed in 1971. A

Yiddish Yiddish, historically Judeo-German, is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated in 9th-century Central Europe, and provided the nascent Ashkenazi community with a vernacular based on High German fused with ...

translation was published by

Perets Perez, also written as Pharez/Peretz (), was the son of Tamar and her father-in-law Judah, and the twin of Zerah, according to the Book of Genesis. The twins were conceived after Tamar tricked her father-in-law Judah into having sexual intercou ...

Tel Aviv Tel Aviv-Yafo ( or , ; ), sometimes rendered as Tel Aviv-Jaffa, and usually referred to as just Tel Aviv, is the most populous city in the Gush Dan metropolitan area of Israel. Located on the Israeli Mediterranean coastline and with a popula ...

in 1965, titled ''Dos yingl Moyshe: Dos togbukh fun Moyshe Flinker''. A

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...

translation was published in 2008 under the title ''Auch wenn ich hoffe: Das Tagebuch des Moshe Flinker'' by Berlin University Press.

References

1958 children's books Books published posthumously Unfinished books Holocaust diaries {{Holocaust-memoir-stub