On January 28, Rutka began her diary entry by recording her reaction to a perceived snub by one of her friends. Although she may have appeared at times to ignore the larger context of her situation, she was probably much more aware than she let on. The focus of her writing was so intensely introspective that it might seem at first as if she didn’t realize that she was living in the shadow of Auschwitz during the depths of the Final Solution. Her self-image was in a constant state of flux, as is common for teens, and this colored the way she interpreted all of her relationships. She was 14 years old at the time and recorded mostly her feelings regarding her friends and the daily details of her personal life. She lived in the Polish town of Bedzin, which had fallen under German occupation at the beginning of World War II. For four months in 1943, Rutka Laskier kept a diary.