The Diary of Petr Ginz, 1941-1942

"Petr was a young prodigy - a budding artist and writer whose paintings, drawings, and writings reflect his insatiable appetite for learning and experience. He records the grim facts of his everyday life with a child's keen eye for the absurd and the tragic - when Jews are forced to identify themselves with the yellow star of David, he writes "on the way to school I counted sixty-nine 'sheriff' " - and throughout, his youthful sense of mischief never dims. In the space of a few pages, Petr muses on the prank he plays on his science class, and reveals that his cousins are being made to turn over all their furniture and belongings, having been summoned east in the next transport." "The diary ends with Petr's own summons to Thereisenstadt, where he would become the driving force behind the secret newspaper, Vedem ("We Lead"), and where he would continue to draw, paint, write, and read, furiously educating himself for a future he would never see."--BOOK JACKET.