“It must always get darker before it can get light again"

Isy Aronowitz - my Great Uncle - from Wuppertal-Elberfeld was deported in 1938 at the age of 25 as an ‘Eastern Jew’. He was sent to the Lódź Ghetto and then to two camps, where he was forced to perform hard labour on the construction of an Autobahn in the conquered East and in the armaments industry. He managed to record his life as a forced labourer from December 1940 to August 1943 in an informative and moving diary. This is the first comprehensive source to describe everyday life during Autobahn construction from the perspective of a forced labourer. The diary is a unique source that makes Isy’s and his fellow inmates’ role in the Nazi system more visible at last.