To write and to live: the diaries of Chajka Klinger

The opening lines of Chajka Klinger's diaries discuss the the dilemma between living and writing. Klinger began writing her diaries while in hiding in a small village in Poland in August 1943, during which thousands of Jews were sent to Auschwitz. Most of her friends were killed and she was apprehended by the Nazis and tortured almost to death. She escaped by luck and made it to her place of hiding where she began to write