Lewin details in a diary (journal?) the day by day details of what life was life in Warsaw after the Germans moved all of the Jews into the ghetto. The Germans, with the aid of police officers squeezed out the Jews in Warsaw, block by block. The Germans used many methods to convince people to give themselves up in addition to allowing (at first) some Jews to work in shops for the Germans. As more and more buildings and streets were cleared out, German companies moved in and hired Jews for slave labor.
Everyday, food got scarcer and the brutality of the Germans got worse. So many people were killed and deported that those who were left behind were forced to either starve to death, give themselves up in the hopes of somehow surviving the deportation, or killing themselves. Many, including Lewin lost family members (children, parents, siblings) along the way and the uncertainty and guilt drove many to madness.
Perhaps of greatest interest to me was how devious the Germans really were. They convinced some Jews to act as policemen to help in rounding up fellow Jews, only to eventually kill them too, after all of the others had been rounded up. Also of interest was the letters from family members and friends talking about how life wasn't so bad where they had been deported to (Treblinka?). This was of course, something the Germans made the Jews do (write letters back home) before killing them to make others believe that they weren't being harmed.
Crazy.
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