She was born into a Jewish family in Poland in 1924, and she began writing her diary just before the German and Soviet invasion of Poland in 1939 and continued to write it until July 1942. She writes about everyday life during the occupation, about school, problems with friends, her first love, the unbearable pain of separation from her mother, and the longing for peace. She weaves the events together with her thoughtful, caustic, and surprisingly mature poetry. It ends in July 1942 with a note from Renja's boyfriend after she is killed by the Germans. Renja's diary is part of the Bellak family's family legacy. After many decades, Renja's niece discovered it and brought it to the world, and the young Polish woman's extraordinary testimony quickly became a bestseller in the United States. The diary has also been translated into several foreign languages. (Excerpted from the front page of the Mladinska knjiga publishing house)