{{Infobox writer | name = Herman Kruk | image = Herman Kruk low res.tif | imagesize = | caption = | birth_name = | birth_date = {{birth date|1897|05|19|df=y}}<ref>Herman Kruk. ''Tagebukh fun Vilner Ghetto''. YIVO, 1961. p. 8.</ref> | birth_place =Płock, Poland<ref name=Kassow>{{cite web|last=Kassow|first=Samuel D.|title=Vilna Stories|url=http://www.eilatgordinlevitan.com/vilna/vilna_pages/vilna_stories_kruk.html|accessdate=31 December 2012}}</ref> | death_date = {{death date and age|1944|09|18|1897|05|19|df=y}}<ref name=Friedlander/> | death_place = KZ Lagedi, Estonia<ref name=Friedlander/> | nationality = | notableworks = The Last Days of the Jerusalem of Lithuania: Chronicles from the Vilna Ghetto and the Camps 1939-1944<ref name=Kassow/> | signature = }} {{The Holocaust sidebar}}
'''Herman Kruk''' ({{langx|yi|הערשל קרוק}}) (19 May 1897-18 September 1944) was a Polish-Jewish librarian and Bundist activist who kept a diary recording his experiences in the Vilna Ghetto during World War II.<ref name="kuznitz">{{cite news|url=http://www.forward.com/articles/7576/|title= Chronicling Life and Death in the Ghetto of the Jerusalem of Lithuania|last=Kuznitz|first=Cecile E.|date=2003-06-27|work=The Forward|accessdate=2009-11-08}}</ref>
==Life== Kruk fled Warsaw and relocated to Vilna at the outbreak of the Invasion of Poland.<ref name=Yivo>{{cite web|title=The Last Days of the Jerusalem of Lithuania: Artifacts of the Vilna Ghetto |url=http://www.yivoinstitute.org/digital_exhibitions/index.php?mcid=73&oid=10 |publisher=YIVO Institute for Jewish Research |accessdate=31 December 2012 |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20120805222831/http://www.yivoinstitute.org/digital_exhibitions/index.php?mcid=73&oid=10 |archivedate=5 August 2012 }}</ref> While confined to the Vilna Ghetto, he organized and oversaw the creation and operation of a library in the Ghetto.<ref name=Yivo/> He also played an active role in several of the ghetto's social welfare and cultural organizations.<ref name=Yivo/>
Kruk continued chronicling his experiences after he was transferred to the Klooga concentration camp.<ref name=Friedlander/> The last entry was made on September 17, 1944, when he buried his diaries inside the camp at KZ Lagedi in Estonia. The following day, he and almost all the other prisoners were forced to carry logs to a pile, spread them in a layer, lie down naked on them so they could be executed and burned in a massive pyre.<ref name=Friedlander/> The Red Army arrived the following day to find the aftermath.<ref name=Friedlander>{{cite book|last=Friedländer|first=Saul|authorlink=Saul Friedländer|title=Nazi Germany and the Jews, 1933-1945: Abridged Edition|year=2009|publisher=HarperCollins|location=New York|isbn=9780061350276|pages=409–410|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=EY2npqn0J8UC&q=Lagedi%20nazi%20camp&pg=PA409}}</ref>
His diary was published posthumously in 1961 by YIVO in original Yiddish ({{langx|yi|טאָגבוך פֿון ווילנער געטאָ}}). An expanded English translation, ''The Last Days of the Jerusalem of Lithuania: Chronicles from the Vilna Ghetto and the Camps 1939-1944'', was published in 2002 ({{ISBN|0300044941}}).
He is one of the main characters in Joshua Sobol's play ''Ghetto''.
==See also== * List of Holocaust diarists * List of diarists * List of posthumous publications of Holocaust victims *The Holocaust in Estonia
==References== {{reflist}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Kruk, Herman}} Category:1944 deaths Category:1897 births Category:People from Płock Category:Polish Jews who died in the Holocaust Category:Jewish Polish writers Category:Vilna Ghetto inmates Category:Polish people executed in Nazi concentration camps Category:Executed people from Masovian Voivodeship Category:Holocaust diarists Category:20th-century Polish diarists Category:People who died in Vaivara concentration camp Category:People executed by Nazi Germany occupation forces