Leningrad schoolgirl Lena Mukhina began keeping a diary in May 1941, unaware that the entries in this small notebook would soon evolve from a chronicle of youthful infatuation into a chronicle of one of the most horrific catastrophes in human history and become part of a dramatic collective text known as 'Siege Diaries.' What can counter the agonizing death of starvation in a world where accepted moral norms are collapsing? What can save one from spiritual degradation in a world where the struggle for survival deprives one of one's 'human face,' and hunger and the fear of death transform one into an animal? One means of salvation turned out to be the orderliness of letters. An attempt to understand what was happening through words, to understand oneself. And also: an intuitive knowledge that one must preserve one's history, one's experience, for others. Today, as more and more Siege diaries are being deciphered and published, we understand the enduring value of these documentary testimonies of a tragic era. Like Anne Frank's diary, Lena Mukhina's can rightfully be considered one of the most dramatic and poignant works of the 20th century.