War Diaries (April 11) (nonfiction)

War Diary entries for April 11

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Entries

Benjamin Gilbert: April 11, 1781

Our situation is peculiarly unhappy as the Troops that are with us have not drawn one half of their winter Cloths and received but one month pay for more than a year.

—Benjamin Gilbert, soldier (letter to his father and stepmother)

• Benjamin Gilbert @ historyisfun.org

Reina Spiegel: July 18, 1942

Days go by. They’re all the same, like drops of rain. Evenings are the most pleasant. We sit in the yard in front of the house, we talk, joke and—breathing in the fragrance of the garden—I manage to forget that I live in the ghetto, that I have so many worries, that I feel lonely and poor, that Z. is a stranger to me, that despite all my longing I cannot get closer to him.

Here, in the yard, doves coo. The moon’s crescent silently floats into the sky. I was on the verge of tears three times today. I blamed the living conditions, but love can flourish anywhere. And yet, shadows always flit on my path. Where do those shadows come from? My heart aches so badly.

—Renia Spiegel, civilian (diary)

• Excerpts from the Diaries of Renia Spiegel @ Smithsonian Magazine

Fiction cross-reference

• Gnomon algorithm
• Gnomon Chronicles

Nonfiction cross-reference

• Benjamin Gilbert (nonfiction)
• Reina Spiegel (nonfiction)
• War (nonfiction)
• War Diaries (nonfiction)

External links

• Benjamin Gilbert @ historyisfun.org
• Excerpts from the Diaries of Renia Spiegel @ Smithsonian Magazine