Last week’s TIME had an article about the diary of Rutka Laskier, a Polish Jew whose diary had been found and kept by a friend for 60 years. It outlines four months in 1943, before Rutka and her family were sent to Auschwitz and killed.

If you’ve read the diary of Anne Frank, you’ll find haunting parallels between their lives: the innocence, the despair, the first glimpses of romance.

People were thirsty, and there was not a single drop of water around … Then … it started pouring. The rain didn’t stop. At 3 o’clock Kuczynsky arrived and the selection started. “1″ meant returning home, “1a” meant going to labor, which was even worse than deportation, “2″ meant going for further inspection, and “3″ meant deportation, in other words, death.

Then I saw what disaster meant. We reported for selection at 4 o’clock. Mom, Dad and my little brother were sent to group 1, and I was sent to 1a. I walked as if I were stunned … The weirdest thing was that we didn’t cry at all, AT ALL … Later on, I saw many more disasters. I can’t put it in words. Little children were lying on the wet grass, the storm raging above our heads. The policemen beat them ferociously and also shot them.

I sat there until 1 o’clock at night. Then I ran away. My heart pounded. I jumped out of a window from the first floor of a small building, and nothing happened to me. Only my lips were bitten so bad that they bled … When I was already on the street, I ran into someone “in uniform,” and I felt that I couldn’t take it anymore. My head was spinning. I was pretty sure he was going to beat me … but apparently he was drunk and didn’t see the “yellow star,” and he let me go.

Around me it was dark like in a closed cabin. From time to time flashes of lightning lightened the sky … and it thundered. The journey that normally takes me half an hour I did in 10 minutes. Everybody was at home except Grandma, whom Dad released and brought home the next day …

Oh, I forgot the most important thing. I saw how a soldier tore a baby, who was only a few months old, out of its mother’s hands and bashed his head against an electric pylon. The baby’s brain splashed on the wood. The mother went crazy.

I am writing this as if nothing has happened. As if I were in an army experienced in cruelty. But I’m young, I’m 14, and I haven’t seen much in my life, and I’m already so indifferent. Now I am terrified when I see “uniforms.” I’m turning into an animal waiting to die …

Now to everyday matters: Janek came by this afternoon. We had to sit in the kitchen … I told him that I had given away all my photographs. He got very upset. We were joking around; we spoke about “Nica and the gang.” While we were talking he suddenly blurted out he’d like it very much if he could kiss me. I said “maybe” and continued the conversation. He was a bit confused; he thought I was Tusia or Hala Zelinger. I would have allowed [myself] to be kissed only by the person I loved, and I feel indifferent towards him.

Then Dad sent me to deal with something. I had to leave. Janek accompanied me. While going downstairs I asked him, is kissing such a pleasant thing? And then I told him that I had already kissed before, what a taste it has (that’s completely true). He burst out laughing. (He has a nice laugh, I must admit.) He said he was curious too. Maybe, but I won’t let him kiss me. I’m afraid it would destroy something beautiful, pure … I’m also afraid that I’ll be very disappointed.

Ahmadinejad should get a copy of her diary.

Six million Jews died in the Holocaust, a testament to how much ideology can shape humans. How could there have been soldiers willing enough to carry out those orders? It might be a bit twisted, but I’m glad to see the human race has come far enough that the thousands who have died in Iraq have a much louder voice. I hope that there will never again come a day where we lose sight of our conscience or take lightly a human life.

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