​When I first reported on a recently discovered diary written in 1944 by a vibrant 18-year-old named Judit Ornstein about her life in Nazi-occupied Budapest, my hope was that a reader might be able to solve the mystery of how her diary was recovered and brought to Israel after she was killed in an Allied bombing. That wish came true.

An Haaretz reader saw the report and connected it with a story his late father told of being in love with a girl named Judit and being given her diary by her friends who found it in the rubble. He kept it on him, even while on the run during the war. But that's not how we found it - read on to hear the rest of the story and how a reader led us to the door of Judit's big crush, to whom she wrote what would become her final words.