The phrase 10 heartbreaking world may sound dramatic, but the raw words of ordinary citizens during World War II are truly gut‑wrenching. Below, we rank ten personal diary excerpts that let us feel the terror, sorrow, and fleeting hope experienced by everyday people caught in the storm of the deadliest conflict in history.
10. Michihiko Hachiya, Hiroshima Resident
We started out, but after 20 or 30 steps, I had to stop. My breath became short, my heart pounded, and my legs gave way under me. An overpowering thirst seized me, and I begged Yaeko‑san to find me some water. But there was no water to be found. After a little, my strength somewhat returned, and we were able to go on.
I was still naked, and although I did not feel the least bit of shame, I was disturbed to realize that modesty had deserted me… Our progress towards the hospital was interminably slow, until finally my legs, stiff from drying blood, refused to carry me farther. The strength, even the will, to go on deserted me, so I told my wife, who was almost as badly hurt as I, to go on alone. She objected, but there was no choice; she had to go ahead and try to find someone to come back for me.
On August 6 1945, an atomic bomb detonated over central Hiroshima, instantly killing about a quarter of the city’s population and bathing the survivors in lethal radiation. Michihiko Hachiya, a hospital worker, was lying at home roughly 1.5 km from ground zero. His diary, published in 1955, captures his agonizing crawl toward a hospital just minutes after the blast. The blast ripped his clothes away, burned his right side, and left him with a crushing thirst caused by fluid loss from severe burns.
Both Michihiko and his wife survived; their district suffered a 27 % fatality rate, while a location only 0.8 km closer saw an 86 % death toll. Though historians argue the bombings hastened Japan’s surrender, eyewitness accounts like Michihiko’s illustrate why nuclear weapons have never been used again.
9. Zygmunt Klukowski, Polish Doctor
From early morning until late at night, we witnessed indescribable events. Armed SS soldiers, gendarmes, and “blue police” ran through the city looking for Jews. Jews were assembled in the marketplace. The Jews were taken from their houses, barns, cellars, attics, and other hiding places. Pistol and gunshots were heard throughout the entire day. Sometimes hand grenades were thrown into the cellars. Jews were beaten and kicked; it made no difference whether they were men, women, or small children.
All Jews will be shot. Between 400 and 500 have been killed. Poles were forced to begin digging graves in the Jewish cemetery. From information I received, approximately 2,000 people are in hiding. The arrested Jews were loaded onto a train at the railroad station to be moved to an unknown location.
It was a terrifying day. I cannot describe everything that took place. You cannot imagine the barbarism of the Germans. I am completely broken and cannot seem to find myself.
On January 20 1942, fifteen senior Nazi officials held a conference to discuss the implementation of a “Final Solution.” It took another nine months for the genocide to reach the sleepy town of Szczebrzeszyn in southeast Poland. Zygmunt Klukowski, chief physician of the local hospital, recorded every horrific detail in his diary, fully aware that discovery would mean death.
This entry documents the rapid, ferocious roundup of Jews across Eastern Europe. The following day, the SS left the village, leaving the Polish military police to continue the hunt. Klukowski, devastated by his inability to aid the injured, expressed disgust at fellow townsfolk who participated in the violence.
8. Lena Mukhina, Leningrad Resident
We are dying like flies here because of the hunger, but yesterday Stalin gave another dinner in Moscow in honor of [the British Foreign Secretary, Anthony] Eden. This is outrageous. They fill their bellies there, while we don’t even get a piece of bread. They play host at all sorts of brilliant receptions while we live like cavemen, like blind moles.
To say the Russian people had it rough during World II would be a monumental understatement. Estimates range from 7 million to 20 million civilian deaths. In Leningrad alone, up to 750,000 civilians starved as the Germans besieged the city for over two years, from September 1941 to January 1944. The above excerpt was penned by 17‑year‑old Lena Mukhina a few months into the blockade.
As the siege wore on, residents resorted to eating rats, cats, earth, and glue. Reports of cannibalism spread. At the time of this entry, Lena lived with her aunt, who died a month later from hunger. Lena survived by concealing her aunt’s death, allowing her to keep the aunt’s food card. Later, she plotted an escape to Moscow. Her diary abruptly ends on May 25 1942, when she made a dangerous crossing of Lake Ladoga. Lena survived the war and died in 1991, just months before the Soviet Union collapsed.
7. Felix Landau, SS Officer
At 6:00 in the morning, I was suddenly awoken from a deep sleep. Report for an execution. Fine, so I’ll just play executioner and then gravedigger, why not. Isn’t it strange, you love battle and then have to shoot defenseless people. Twenty‑three had to be shot, amongst them the two above‑mentioned women. They are unbelievable. They even refused to accept a glass of water from us.
I was detailed as a marksman and had to shoot any runaways. We drove one kilometer along the road out of town and then turned right into a wood. There were only six of us at that point, and we had to find a suitable spot to shoot and bury them. After a few minutes, we found a place. The death candidates assembled with shovels to dig their own graves. Two of them were weeping.
The others certainly have incredible courage. What on earth is running through their minds during these moments? I think that each of them harbors a small hope that somehow he won’t be shot. The death candidates are organized into three shifts as there are not many shovels.
Strange, I am completely unmoved. No pity, nothing. That’s the way it is, and then it’s all over. My heart beats just a little faster when involuntarily I recall the feelings and thoughts I had when I was in a similar situation.
Felix Landau was a member of the feared German SS. For much of the war, he belonged to an Einsatzkommando, a mobile death squad tasked with exterminating Jews, Romani, Polish intelligentsia, and other groups. Landau operated across Poland and Ukraine, committing atrocities in towns such as Drohobych. His diary details these crimes in graphic detail. The lack of emotion he expresses is typical of SS officers who carried out mass executions. After the war, he evaded capture until 1959, when he was sentenced to life imprisonment. He was released for “good behavior” in 1971 and died in 1983.
6. Leslie Skinner, British Army Chaplain
On foot located brewed up tanks. Only ash and burnt metal in Birkett’s tank. Searched ash and found remains pelvic bones. At other tanks three bodies still inside. Unable to remove bodies after long struggle—nasty business—sick.
The diary of Captain Leslie Skinner captures his harrowing experiences immediately after the D‑Day landings. Skinner was not a combat soldier but a priest, assigned as a chaplain to the Sherwood Rangers Yeomanry tank regiment. He was the first chaplain to land on D‑Day, wounded by a mortar shell, yet he quickly returned to the front and stayed with the regiment through the Northwestern European campaign.
Known as “Padre Skinner,” his role was to provide spiritual comfort and perform last rites. A particularly gruesome aspect of his job involved recovering bodies of the dead to give them a proper burial:
Fearful job picking up bits and pieces and reassembling for identification and putting in blankets for burial. No infantry to help. Squadron Leader offered to lend me some men to help. Refused. Less men who live and fight in tanks have to do with this side of things the better. My job. This was more than normally sick making. Really ill—vomiting.
Skinner donated his diary to the Imperial War Museum in 1991. He passed away ten years later at the age of 89.
5. David Koker, Concentration Camp Prisoner
A slight, insignificant‑looking little man, with a rather good‑humored face. High peaked cap, mustache, and small spectacles. I think: If you wanted to trace back all the misery and horror to just one person, it would have to be him. Around him, a lot of fellows with weary faces. Very big, heavily dressed men, they swerve along whichever way he turns, like a swarm of flies, changing places among themselves (they don’t stand still for a moment) and moving like a single whole. It makes a fatally alarming impression. They look everywhere without finding anything to focus on.
While many Holocaust memoirs exist, only a few diaries have survived from within the camps. One such diary belongs to David Koker, a Dutch Jewish student sent to Camp Vught in February 1943. His story bears resemblance to Anne Frank’s, yet Koker began his diary after his capture.
Despite the strict prohibition on diaries, Koker befriended the camp clerk and his wife, granting him a rare privilege. The above entry offers a vivid description of Heinrich Himmler, the SS chief and chief architect of the Holocaust, during his visit to Vught in February 1944.
Later that month, a camp worker smuggled Koker’s diary to safety. He was shuffled between camps as the Allies liberated Europe. Koker died in 1945 while being transported to the notorious Dachau concentration camp.
4. Nella Last, Resident Of London
Midnight: Sounds of bombs and waves of planes going over to either the Clyde or Northern Ireland, machine gunning. All making an inferno of sound and the crump of bombs falling in the centre of the town is dreadful.
2 am: I wonder if anything will be left of the centre of the town, there are such dreadful crumps. I cannot relax or sit down for every 15 minutes or so we run for cover while shrapnel pours on the roof and bombs dropped somewhere make the doors and windows shake and rattle.
4 am: The devil planes must be coming back now – a hundred must have passed over tonight. I think I’d like to cry or swear or something.
In September 1939, Nella Last began a diary that spanned nearly thirty years. She volunteered for the Mass Observation Archive, a project launched in 1937 to record the everyday thoughts of ordinary Britons. These archives now provide a unique window into civilian life during wartime.
Nella was a housewife married to a shop‑fitter and joiner. Their younger son, Cliff, served in the Army, while the older son, Arthur, worked as a tax inspector and was exempt from conscription. The family lived in Barrow‑in‑Furness, a ship‑building town that became a target for German bombing during the Blitz. Their diaries, published in 1981, vividly portray the anxiety, resilience, and ingenuity of families coping with relentless aerial attacks.
3. “Ginger,” Resident Of Pearl Harbor
I was awakened at eight o’clock in the morning by an explosion from Pearl Harbor. I got up, thinking something exciting was probably going on over there. Little did I know! When I reached the kitchen, the whole family, excluding Pop, was looking over at the Navy Yard. It was being consumed by black smoke and more terrific explosions … Then I became extremely worried, as did we all.
Mom and I stepped onto the front porch for a better view, and three planes zoomed overhead, close enough to touch. Their wings bore red circles. Soon after, bombs began falling over Hickam. We stayed at the windows, stunned, watching the chaos. It felt like a night‑marish newsreel, only worse.
We saw soldiers sprinting from the barracks, only to be knocked down by a line of bombs. Dust and debris swirled, forcing us to close windows. Soldiers sought refuge in our garage, unarmed and caught completely off‑guard.
The December 7 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor by Japanese forces turned two regional conflicts into a full‑scale World War. The surprise strike left 2,403 Americans dead and propelled the United States into the war. The surrounding area housed not only servicemen but also families and island residents. “Ginger,” a 17‑year‑old high‑school senior, lived at Hickam Field on the east side of the base. Her diary captures the shock, confusion, and raw fear that rippled through the community during those 90 harrowing minutes.
2. Wilhelm Hoffman, German Soldier
The company commander says the Russian troops are completely broken and cannot hold out any longer. To reach the Volga and take Stalingrad is not so difficult for us. The Fuhrer knows where the Russians’ weak point is. Victory is not far away.
The fiercest and bloodiest battles of World II unfolded on the Eastern Front. For every German who fell on the Western Front, nine more died in the East. The deadliest clash of the entire war was the Battle of Stalingrad, a five‑month slaughter that turned the tide in favor of the Soviet Union.
This diary entry comes from Wilhelm Hoffman, a soldier in the 94th Infantry Division of the German Sixth Army. Written at the end of July 1942, a month before the Stalingrad offensive, it reflects the overconfidence that pervaded German ranks. Hoffman believed victory was imminent, buoyed by earlier successes.
However, the Soviets held firm, fighting building‑by‑building while the Red Army prepared a massive counter‑offensive. By December, the German forces were encircled. Hoffman’s later entries grew bleak, describing starvation and desperation:
The horses have already been eaten. I would eat a cat; they say its meat is also tasty. The soldiers look like corpses or lunatics, looking for something to put in their mouths. They no longer take cover from Russian shells; they haven’t the strength to walk, run away and hide. A curse on this war!
Wilhelm Hoffman ultimately perished at Stalingrad, though the exact circumstances remain unknown.
1. Hayashi Ichizo, Japanese Kamikaze Pilot
To be honest, I cannot say that the wish to die for the emperor is genuine, coming from my heart. However, it is decided for me that I die for the emperor. I shall not be afraid of the moment of my death. But I am afraid of how the fear of death will perturb my life …
Even a short life can be packed with memories. For someone who once enjoyed a comfortable existence, parting is agonizing. Yet Hayashi reached a point of no return: he had to plunge into an enemy vessel. As his take‑off approached, a heavy pressure settled over him, and he confessed he could not stare at death.
Popular imagination paints kamikaze pilots as fanatical imperialists eager to sacrifice themselves. While some fit that image, many pilots, like Hayashi, were reluctant youths forced into the role. Drafted in 1943 at age 21, Hayashi began keeping a diary a month before his assignment to a suicide unit in February 1945.
Japanese families often opposed the war, but conscription left little escape. Toward the war’s end, many students were chosen for the “Tokkōtai” (suicide) squadrons. The majority were under 25; the youngest recorded pilot, Yukio Araki, was just 17. Officially, all pilots volunteered, yet coercion was common.
Hayashi’s diary reveals his inner turmoil, torn between patriotism and love for his family, whom he knew he would never see again. He completed his suicide mission on April 12 1945, five months before Japan’s surrender.
These ten diary entries, each a raw, personal window into the cataclysm of World II, remind us that history is not just dates and strategies—it is lived experience. By reading the words of everyday people, we gain a deeper, more human understanding of the war’s heartbreaking world.