Few Holocaust diaries are as finely observed, or offer the same narrative opportunities, as Anne Frank's. Yet reading excerpts from these five journals is a powerful reminder that every victim's story deserves to be known. Each of the teenage writers reveals emotions that will resonate with readers: David's tenderheartedness, Yitzhak's idealism, Moshe's ambition, Eva's longing for her mother, Anne's desire for independence. They speak and act as adolescents do, yet the day-to-day events they chronicle grow increasingly horrifying.

The diaries show how the Nazi terror blankets Europe, touching the home countries of each of the five teens. The records of the three who spend time in Jewish ghettos are especially harrowing, filled with reports of manhunts, Nazi brutality, forced labor, and wrenching separations. Though his comments may at first seem intrusive, Boas proves a trustworthy guide, filling in details that enrich the diaries and eloquently showing how the teens are united in life as well as in death.