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Elli Friedmann #1
I Have Lived A Thousand Years: Growing Up In The Holocaust
What is death all about?
What is life all about?
So wonders thirteen-year-old- Elli Friedmann, just one of the many innocent Holocaust victims, as she fights for her life in a concentration camp. It wasn't long ago that Elli led a normal life; a life rich and full that included family, friends, school, and thoughts about boys. A life in which Elli could lie and daydream for hours that she was a beautiful and elegant celebrated poet.
But these adolescent daydreams quickly darken in March 1944, when the Nazis invade Hungary. First Elli can no longer attend school, have possessions, or talk to her neighbors. Then she and her family are forced to leave their house behind to move into a crowded ghetto, where privacy becomes a luxury of the past and food becomes a scarcity. Her strong will and faith allow Elli to manage and adjust somehow, but what Elli doesn't know is that this is only the beginning and the worst is yet to come....
A remarkable memoir. I Have Lived a Thousand Years is a story of cruelty and suffering, but at the same time a story of hope, faith, perseverance and love.
What is life all about?
So wonders thirteen-year-old- Elli Friedmann, just one of the many innocent Holocaust victims, as she fights for her life in a concentration camp. It wasn't long ago that Elli led a normal life; a life rich and full that included family, friends, school, and thoughts about boys. A life in which Elli could lie and daydream for hours that she was a beautiful and elegant celebrated poet.
But these adolescent daydreams quickly darken in March 1944, when the Nazis invade Hungary. First Elli can no longer attend school, have possessions, or talk to her neighbors. Then she and her family are forced to leave their house behind to move into a crowded ghetto, where privacy becomes a luxury of the past and food becomes a scarcity. Her strong will and faith allow Elli to manage and adjust somehow, but what Elli doesn't know is that this is only the beginning and the worst is yet to come....
A remarkable memoir. I Have Lived a Thousand Years is a story of cruelty and suffering, but at the same time a story of hope, faith, perseverance and love.
234 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1997
About the author
Livia Bitton-Jackson
7 books154 followersLivia Bitton-Jackson (born February 28, 1931) is an author and a Holocaust survivor. She was born as Elli L. Friedmann in Samorin, Czechoslovakia. She was 13 years old when she, her mother, father, aunt and brother Bubi, were taken to Ghetto Nagymagyar. Eventually, they were transported to Auschwitz, the largest German concentration camp. She was liberated in 1945. Bitton-Jackson came to the U.S. on a refugee boat in 1951. She then studied at New York University, from which she received a Ph.D. in Hebrew Culture and Jewish History. She also wrote her 1997 memoir I Have Lived a Thousand Years.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 1,195 reviews
December 15, 2017
3.5 Stars
I have lived a Thousand Years is a well written, candid, and deeply poignant account of survival as a teenager in the Nazi death camps.
It is however the first book of a 3 parts series which I do think it is important to point out as I failed to observe this fact before reading the book and really felt the ending rushed until I realised it there are two other books in the series.
A First hand account of the life of a young teenager in a Nazi concentration camp, a difficult but important story from a first hand view, a compelling read and as always with books written on the Holocaust an important account of what torture and cruelty human beings can inflict on their fellow citizens. Every memoir or account like this is unique and essential in helping us remember and experience though words a time of madness, of shocking and shameful atrocities and a time when people turned their backs while their neighbours and friends
The book is informative and insightful and you certainly feel emotion on reading this account.
I listened to this one on audio and the narrator was excellent.
I have lived a Thousand Years is a well written, candid, and deeply poignant account of survival as a teenager in the Nazi death camps.
It is however the first book of a 3 parts series which I do think it is important to point out as I failed to observe this fact before reading the book and really felt the ending rushed until I realised it there are two other books in the series.
A First hand account of the life of a young teenager in a Nazi concentration camp, a difficult but important story from a first hand view, a compelling read and as always with books written on the Holocaust an important account of what torture and cruelty human beings can inflict on their fellow citizens. Every memoir or account like this is unique and essential in helping us remember and experience though words a time of madness, of shocking and shameful atrocities and a time when people turned their backs while their neighbours and friends
The book is informative and insightful and you certainly feel emotion on reading this account.
I listened to this one on audio and the narrator was excellent.
September 20, 2021
4.5 Stars
CW: For horrific war crimes.
Well that was a harrowing story of one girls struggle to survive life in a concentration camp.
I listened to this in one sitting because it was short and gripping. It is probably one of the better holocaust survival stories I have read because the writing and characters drew me in. This was made all the more powerful by the fact that it is a true story. Elli's will to survive was remarkable and the strength she showed to bring herself and her mother through these horrendous times will stick with me for quite some time. Outstanding.
CW: For horrific war crimes.
Well that was a harrowing story of one girls struggle to survive life in a concentration camp.
I listened to this in one sitting because it was short and gripping. It is probably one of the better holocaust survival stories I have read because the writing and characters drew me in. This was made all the more powerful by the fact that it is a true story. Elli's will to survive was remarkable and the strength she showed to bring herself and her mother through these horrendous times will stick with me for quite some time. Outstanding.
January 21, 2011
I cannot resist the urge to compare this book with Shanghai Diary: A Young Girl's Journey from Hitler's Hate to War-Torn China, which I read prior to this one. Both are written in the first-person perspective of a young teen during the Holocaust. Although their situations differed markedly, both were wrenched from their homes, stripped of personal properties, separated from loved ones and confined in inhumane situations. In Shanghai, the family had chosen to immigrate to avoid maltreatment by the Nazis. Although they were not placed under armed guard, nor tortured, their existence was a constant ordeal. They had the comforts of human relationships, subsistence diet and a semblance of shelter. Bitton-Jackson's memoir has bared the horrifying details of a young girl's experience in the sub-human conditions in railway cars, work details and concentration camps.
Both authors have imparted their thoughts and feelings, rendering disturbing visions for the reader. Bitton-Jackson's fear of the Nazis, her hunger and the desire to live were glaringly present throughout. It was difficult to read many passages without crying for these poor victims.
I have written elsewhere about my visit to the Holocaust Memorial in Washington, DC.* I have also gone to Yad Vashem in Israel and the Imperial War Museum in London. They all have revealed similar feelings for visitors, as evident from the profuse tears seen all around me. Each site exhibited shocking collections of remnants of lives once lived happily and peacefully, but stolen by the Nazis, who believed themselves to be a "Superior Race". I have often remarked about my gratitude for my ancestors' decisions to come to America. Viewing the aforementioned exhibits and reading these books reaffirms my feelings of certainty that my family would have been victims also. The museum sites and these books stress the importance that this abhorrent chapter in history should not be forgotten.
* See
Those Who Save Us
Both authors have imparted their thoughts and feelings, rendering disturbing visions for the reader. Bitton-Jackson's fear of the Nazis, her hunger and the desire to live were glaringly present throughout. It was difficult to read many passages without crying for these poor victims.
I have written elsewhere about my visit to the Holocaust Memorial in Washington, DC.* I have also gone to Yad Vashem in Israel and the Imperial War Museum in London. They all have revealed similar feelings for visitors, as evident from the profuse tears seen all around me. Each site exhibited shocking collections of remnants of lives once lived happily and peacefully, but stolen by the Nazis, who believed themselves to be a "Superior Race". I have often remarked about my gratitude for my ancestors' decisions to come to America. Viewing the aforementioned exhibits and reading these books reaffirms my feelings of certainty that my family would have been victims also. The museum sites and these books stress the importance that this abhorrent chapter in history should not be forgotten.
* See
Those Who Save Us
May 31, 2016
Livia Bitton-Jackson tells her story as a young teenage child and how she survived the brutality of the Holocaust and the horrors of Auschwitz.Born Livia (Ellie) Friedmann in 1931 in the picturesque and sleepy town of Somorja between the Carpathians and the Danube, in a fairly religious Jewish home.
At the age of 13 Ellie witnessed the invading Nazis sweeping into her town and the life of the family was turned upside down. Ellie as particularly upset at her brand new bicycle being taken way by the Nazis, together with all of the families positions as happened to all Jews in Nazi-occupied Europe before they were deported.
She describes the heart wrenching scene where she sees her father for the last time before he is deported by the Nazis to Auschwitz. Ellie and her mother are later deported to Theresienstadt ghetto where they face starvation and extreme deprivation and then to the horrors of Auschwitz which she describes in horrific detail, in this factual and at the same time human and sensitive account.
She describes the great suffering of the Jews in Auschwitz and the unbelievable brutality of the Nazis.
She survived because a Nazi officer was intrigued by her blond hair and passed her onto the section of those who would be set to work rather than be sent straight away to be exterminated in the gas chambers.
She describes her sadness, through her own starvation and suffering of seeing a consignment of small Jewish children, still pretty and fresh faced, having been newly arrived in Auschwitz and sent straight to their deaths in the gas chambers.
Through her determination and series of miracles Ellie and her mother (who she took great care of and rescued) survived the Holocaust, as did her brother Bubi.
but not before an ambush of the survivors by retreating Nazi forces after it became clear that Nazi Germany had lost the war.
After surviving Auschwitz Elie looked sixty years old, according to a German women from a nearby village, who met the survivors The woman was shocked to discover that Elie was only 14 years old.
After the war Elie desperately wanted to go to the Land of Israel which she knew was the only true home of the Jewish people , and that even in the USA they would really always be foreigners. Millions of Jewish survivors waited for certification that they would be allowed into what was then still British ruled 'Palestine'.
But as she did not want to be separated from her family she went with them to New York instead , in 1951. Even as the Jewish refugees arrived in New york the all sand Hatikvah, the Zionist anthem. Sung by so many thousands of Holocaust survivors.
Livia dedicated this book the the children of Israel today who 'unclaimed and unsung risk their lives everyday, just by travelling to school in Judea and Samaria for the sake of a secure peace in Israel-the only guarantee that a holocaust will never happen again"
At the age of 13 Ellie witnessed the invading Nazis sweeping into her town and the life of the family was turned upside down. Ellie as particularly upset at her brand new bicycle being taken way by the Nazis, together with all of the families positions as happened to all Jews in Nazi-occupied Europe before they were deported.
She describes the heart wrenching scene where she sees her father for the last time before he is deported by the Nazis to Auschwitz. Ellie and her mother are later deported to Theresienstadt ghetto where they face starvation and extreme deprivation and then to the horrors of Auschwitz which she describes in horrific detail, in this factual and at the same time human and sensitive account.
She describes the great suffering of the Jews in Auschwitz and the unbelievable brutality of the Nazis.
She survived because a Nazi officer was intrigued by her blond hair and passed her onto the section of those who would be set to work rather than be sent straight away to be exterminated in the gas chambers.
She describes her sadness, through her own starvation and suffering of seeing a consignment of small Jewish children, still pretty and fresh faced, having been newly arrived in Auschwitz and sent straight to their deaths in the gas chambers.
Through her determination and series of miracles Ellie and her mother (who she took great care of and rescued) survived the Holocaust, as did her brother Bubi.
but not before an ambush of the survivors by retreating Nazi forces after it became clear that Nazi Germany had lost the war.
After surviving Auschwitz Elie looked sixty years old, according to a German women from a nearby village, who met the survivors The woman was shocked to discover that Elie was only 14 years old.
After the war Elie desperately wanted to go to the Land of Israel which she knew was the only true home of the Jewish people , and that even in the USA they would really always be foreigners. Millions of Jewish survivors waited for certification that they would be allowed into what was then still British ruled 'Palestine'.
But as she did not want to be separated from her family she went with them to New York instead , in 1951. Even as the Jewish refugees arrived in New york the all sand Hatikvah, the Zionist anthem. Sung by so many thousands of Holocaust survivors.
Livia dedicated this book the the children of Israel today who 'unclaimed and unsung risk their lives everyday, just by travelling to school in Judea and Samaria for the sake of a secure peace in Israel-the only guarantee that a holocaust will never happen again"
March 31, 2009
This might be one of the best Holocaust books I have read. A true account of the author as a 13 year old from Hungary sent to Auschwitz and then Dachau. Violent, haunting, grisly, hopeful, brave, and astonishing. A lump in your throat, tears rolling down your cheeks account that makes you count your blessings. Thank you Mrs. Hancock and 6th grade for recommending this life changing book.
May 21, 2010
I have to stop reading holocaust books....... The one I am reading now is a YA book, but I think it is one of the most gripping I have ever read. With little details the author puts you there in the concentration camp, naked, without clothes, in the showers, having your hair shorn off, being served soup filled with white squirming worms........No other holocaust book has done this to me so grittingly. I AM THERE. These are not just words on a page. You are equally torn when the Nazis take her new Schwinn bicycle, when her diploma is burned, when her new boyfriend cannot speak to her.... Why? Because you are her.
Please note that the author, who is writing about herself, is only 13 years old. Her home village is Samorin, near Bratislava. During a year, starting from April 1944, she is in Auschwitz, Plaszow, Dachau, Augsburg.
Excellent, moving writing.
I have said enough. Without a doubt, it gets 5 stars. For more information, see the comments below.
After this, I need a breather from holocaust literature.
Please note that the author, who is writing about herself, is only 13 years old. Her home village is Samorin, near Bratislava. During a year, starting from April 1944, she is in Auschwitz, Plaszow, Dachau, Augsburg.
Excellent, moving writing.
I have said enough. Without a doubt, it gets 5 stars. For more information, see the comments below.
After this, I need a breather from holocaust literature.
January 15, 2018
31 May 2020 : Re-reading as Homework from Kellee.
***************************************
ORIGINAL REVIEW
4 stars.
Wow. Having read this in just one day, I'm left rather speechless. For the last 50 pages, I kept forgetting that this story was in fact a TRUE story. I'd read parts and the shock would hit and I'd be like, "how!?!? How can this have really happened!" The horror of it being true is just too much for my brain to grasp. To think, and know, that so so few people survived what is possibly one of the worst things to have ever happens, ever, makes this a really emotional read. For me personally, the horror of Bibi (pages 175 and 176) is what was the first part to really upset me and those couple pages I was nearly brought to tears and I had to stop reading for a bit before I could keep going. And it just got worse.
I've read quite a few holocaust novels and if you have too, you will know that they all have a similarly, yet are also so different and each and everyone manages to be heartbreaking. You would think that you would get use to it, but this is one part of history that I feel there is no getting use to. The insanity of it having happened, it just makes me so angry aswell. These people did NOT deserve what happened to them. This story is just one of the stories from one survivor, but it's one that was also needed to be told. The cover. Well the cover is an actual photo of her as a teenager. She had rescued it, saved it, and is now sharing it with the world. Each survivor's story is important, and this one is definitely important. I really hope that the rest of her life was a good one.
***************************************
ORIGINAL REVIEW
4 stars.
Wow. Having read this in just one day, I'm left rather speechless. For the last 50 pages, I kept forgetting that this story was in fact a TRUE story. I'd read parts and the shock would hit and I'd be like, "how!?!? How can this have really happened!" The horror of it being true is just too much for my brain to grasp. To think, and know, that so so few people survived what is possibly one of the worst things to have ever happens, ever, makes this a really emotional read. For me personally, the horror of Bibi (pages 175 and 176) is what was the first part to really upset me and those couple pages I was nearly brought to tears and I had to stop reading for a bit before I could keep going. And it just got worse.
I've read quite a few holocaust novels and if you have too, you will know that they all have a similarly, yet are also so different and each and everyone manages to be heartbreaking. You would think that you would get use to it, but this is one part of history that I feel there is no getting use to. The insanity of it having happened, it just makes me so angry aswell. These people did NOT deserve what happened to them. This story is just one of the stories from one survivor, but it's one that was also needed to be told. The cover. Well the cover is an actual photo of her as a teenager. She had rescued it, saved it, and is now sharing it with the world. Each survivor's story is important, and this one is definitely important. I really hope that the rest of her life was a good one.
January 22, 2011
What sets Bitton-Jackson's Holocaust memoir apart from the others is that it is simultaneously poetic and graphic. Also, the entire book is written in the first-person which gives it a startling immediacy.
It has garnered hundreds of deservedly glowing reviews, both here and on Amazon, so I won't take the trouble of summarizing it but the following sections hit me upside the head:
The joyful ethnic pride she discovers in the Jewish ghetto:
"For the first time in my life, I am happy to be a Jew . . . The cock-feathered policement who had trampled on our sofas and our self-esteem, the Gentile neighbors who were afraid to say good-bye, the Jancsi Novaks, the kind, gentle friends who have not attempted to send a note of synpathy, the peasant wagon drivers who dutifully accepted wages from us for delivering us to the enemy . . . they all are on the other side of the fence. A tall fence separates us. A world separates us because they do not understand.
"But we, on this side of the fence, we understand. We put up sheets around bathtubs in the yard in order to take baths. We cook on open stoves, We stand in long lines for the toilet. No friendship or love binds as this deep, spontaneous, easy mutuality."
The graphic description of concentration camp food is clearer than any I've read elsewhere:
"I snatch the bread from Mommy's hand (she had refused to eat it) and begin to eat. The dry, mudlike lump turns into wet sand particles in my mouth. . .
"When the bowl of food is handed to me, I am unable to take a gulp. It is a dark green, thick mass in a battered washbowl crusted with dirt. No spoons. You tilt the bowl until the mass slides to the edge, then gulp. The dark mush smells and looks repulsive. The edge of the bowl is rusty and cracked and uneven with dried-on smut. My nausea returns in a flash."
And to add fodder to the eternal question of how much did war-time Germans outside the SS really know about the concentration camps, there is an interesting chapter titled "This Must be Heaven." Some clearly astonished Wehrmacht officials running a Luftwaffe factory who have requested female laborers from Auschwitz don't recognize the arriving inmates as women, ask them where their luggage is (which causes much laughter among the inmates), and ask for their actual names. When one officer tells Bitton-Jackson's partially paralyzed mother not to worry, that "here you will get better. We will take good care of you" the daughter's response is "I am surely dreaming."
A stunning Holocaust memoir, simultaneously poetic and graphic.
It has garnered hundreds of deservedly glowing reviews, both here and on Amazon, so I won't take the trouble of summarizing it but the following sections hit me upside the head:
The joyful ethnic pride she discovers in the Jewish ghetto:
"For the first time in my life, I am happy to be a Jew . . . The cock-feathered policement who had trampled on our sofas and our self-esteem, the Gentile neighbors who were afraid to say good-bye, the Jancsi Novaks, the kind, gentle friends who have not attempted to send a note of synpathy, the peasant wagon drivers who dutifully accepted wages from us for delivering us to the enemy . . . they all are on the other side of the fence. A tall fence separates us. A world separates us because they do not understand.
"But we, on this side of the fence, we understand. We put up sheets around bathtubs in the yard in order to take baths. We cook on open stoves, We stand in long lines for the toilet. No friendship or love binds as this deep, spontaneous, easy mutuality."
The graphic description of concentration camp food is clearer than any I've read elsewhere:
"I snatch the bread from Mommy's hand (she had refused to eat it) and begin to eat. The dry, mudlike lump turns into wet sand particles in my mouth. . .
"When the bowl of food is handed to me, I am unable to take a gulp. It is a dark green, thick mass in a battered washbowl crusted with dirt. No spoons. You tilt the bowl until the mass slides to the edge, then gulp. The dark mush smells and looks repulsive. The edge of the bowl is rusty and cracked and uneven with dried-on smut. My nausea returns in a flash."
And to add fodder to the eternal question of how much did war-time Germans outside the SS really know about the concentration camps, there is an interesting chapter titled "This Must be Heaven." Some clearly astonished Wehrmacht officials running a Luftwaffe factory who have requested female laborers from Auschwitz don't recognize the arriving inmates as women, ask them where their luggage is (which causes much laughter among the inmates), and ask for their actual names. When one officer tells Bitton-Jackson's partially paralyzed mother not to worry, that "here you will get better. We will take good care of you" the daughter's response is "I am surely dreaming."
A stunning Holocaust memoir, simultaneously poetic and graphic.
January 18, 2014
The first time I visited a synagogue, it was with a group of students and Ms Livia Bitton-Jackson was our teacher in Lehman College , the Bronx, New York, 1998. Ms Bitton-Jackson told us the story of that pretty picture of her on the cover of the book. It was a miracle. She no longer had any possessions after having lived for a long period in concentration camp. A time when she often shared raw potatoes secretly with the other prisoners. Years after the war, she visited Poland and found a place where photos that had been lost by victims of the holocaust, had been preserved. Looking through the pictures, accidentally she found a picture of her as a teen ager. That is the picture used in this book cover. I have to also share that Livia was at the time I studied with her, the woman with the most astonishing beauty. As a matter of fact I don't recall having seen a woman as beautiful as her before or after having met her. Her smile together with her eyes, beamed rays of joy, love and womanhood...an amazing human being.....
October 6, 2015
Oh. My. Freaking. God.
I have no words to describe this.
I have no words to describe this.
June 21, 2024
No matter how many books on the Holocaust you read, it remains a sacred subject, hallowed by those who have suffered in it. Ellie, as she is called by her family in this book, is only 13/14 during the year she describes in I Have Lived A Thousand Years: Growing Up in the Holocaust, although she does dip into other years of her life. The primary focus is the time she and her Hungarian family are captives of the Nazis.
It is a sobering account as is to be expected, not so bad as some, but horrendous enough, especially considering her age. She is brave, intelligent, wise-beyond-her-years and fiercely loyal to the family she loves so much. Even if you have already read a dozen other books on this subject, this is worth reading, just to meet her.
Thank you for your testimony, Ellie/Livia. May God grant peace and eternal rest for your family and all your people who did not survive and who have since passed on. And may He bless you richly for all you have suffered! bl+
It is a sobering account as is to be expected, not so bad as some, but horrendous enough, especially considering her age. She is brave, intelligent, wise-beyond-her-years and fiercely loyal to the family she loves so much. Even if you have already read a dozen other books on this subject, this is worth reading, just to meet her.
Thank you for your testimony, Ellie/Livia. May God grant peace and eternal rest for your family and all your people who did not survive and who have since passed on. And may He bless you richly for all you have suffered! bl+
September 16, 2022
4,25 stars - English Ebook
March 29, 2010
Once I started reading this book, I just couldn't put it down. Bitton-Jackson's frank and compelling memoir details the loss of her childhood to the Holocaust, surviving the concentration camps, and finding her way back home with her mother and brother, only to find everything destroyed (except for the jewelry buried in the basement), and her father dead, two weeks before liberation.
She was just a girl, 13 years old, with blonde hair and green blue eyes, who could easily pass as a non-Jew. A member of the SS actually asked her if she was Jewish and then advised her to lie about her age - to say that she was 16 - to ensure that she would not be sent to the gas chambers with all the other children. She is shy about her changing body; she is frightened to get her period in a concentration camp and embarrassed for the girl in front of her whose menstrual blood runs down her legs because she has no undergarments or sanitary napkins to use.
Over the course of her time in various concentration camps, she clings to her mother and survival. More than just a Holocaust memoir, this is a coming of age story of a young girl and her relationship with her mother. She risked her life on more than one occasion for her mother - suffering brutal beatings and the risk of death. The mutual respect that came out of their shared experiences brought them closer together, closer than I daresay they would have been if their lives continued on their scheduled paths before the occupation.
Books like these are so hard to read. The pain, suffering, the magnitude of cruelty that humans can inflict upon other humans beings is just too much for me to comprehend, but I keep reading Holocaust books. I'm trying to understand because I feel that in understanding, I can do my part to ensure that this doesn't happen again.
She was just a girl, 13 years old, with blonde hair and green blue eyes, who could easily pass as a non-Jew. A member of the SS actually asked her if she was Jewish and then advised her to lie about her age - to say that she was 16 - to ensure that she would not be sent to the gas chambers with all the other children. She is shy about her changing body; she is frightened to get her period in a concentration camp and embarrassed for the girl in front of her whose menstrual blood runs down her legs because she has no undergarments or sanitary napkins to use.
Over the course of her time in various concentration camps, she clings to her mother and survival. More than just a Holocaust memoir, this is a coming of age story of a young girl and her relationship with her mother. She risked her life on more than one occasion for her mother - suffering brutal beatings and the risk of death. The mutual respect that came out of their shared experiences brought them closer together, closer than I daresay they would have been if their lives continued on their scheduled paths before the occupation.
Books like these are so hard to read. The pain, suffering, the magnitude of cruelty that humans can inflict upon other humans beings is just too much for me to comprehend, but I keep reading Holocaust books. I'm trying to understand because I feel that in understanding, I can do my part to ensure that this doesn't happen again.
December 14, 2022
To Elli Friedman:
Your story of the torment and agony you experienced in Auschwitz and other concentration camps during World War 2 was heart-wrenching, it tore at my very soul … how you cared for your mother, how you never gave up on finding the rest of your family, how you believed in a higher power even at the zenith of misery and cruelty, was truly inspirational … reading your story helps put life in perspective, how complaints of my personal life here in the home that I own, with fresh food in my refrigerator, and immediate contact with family and friends seem so meaningless and shallow … I will forever be inspired by the haunting beauty of your struggle to keep hope alive in your heart and how you treated others with so much kindness and compassion even in the worst of times …
Your story of the torment and agony you experienced in Auschwitz and other concentration camps during World War 2 was heart-wrenching, it tore at my very soul … how you cared for your mother, how you never gave up on finding the rest of your family, how you believed in a higher power even at the zenith of misery and cruelty, was truly inspirational … reading your story helps put life in perspective, how complaints of my personal life here in the home that I own, with fresh food in my refrigerator, and immediate contact with family and friends seem so meaningless and shallow … I will forever be inspired by the haunting beauty of your struggle to keep hope alive in your heart and how you treated others with so much kindness and compassion even in the worst of times …
April 6, 2017
A story that you really don't want to know about. BUT IT DID HAPPEN. So, you must read it to help you understand what took place and how the Jews were dealt with. Not a pretty picture described by Livia Britton-Jackson. How she and some of her family survived is unreal.
I need to reread this again so I won't forget the terrible events that took place in the concentration camps.
I need to reread this again so I won't forget the terrible events that took place in the concentration camps.
October 21, 2020
Graphic description survivor of the holocaust.
April 9, 2026
This was really well written from a child's POV in WW2 being sent to the labor and concentration camps. Was very sad but I recommend.
April 25, 2020
5. This is a book everyone should read. It’s a small book, so it can easily be read by everyone.
The uncomplicated story telling is perfect, as she is telling the story of her life at 13-14-15. I clung to every word. I could visualize, smell.... with the simple words of a young school girl.
It’s hard to describe how this true story impacts you. This is probably the eighth or even 10th book with the holocaust as a theme or the backdrop That I have read in the last 9 or 10 months. This story leaves you in deep though - aching for the survivors. I so want to know this woman. I so want to restore - change - the past for these Holocaust victims.
Victims on this massive scale, it’s nearly impossible to fathom. I truly don’t think any human being can in anyway relate to this kind of experience, unless they actually lived it. It is so grotesque, disturbing, distorted… Any and every word that means pure evil. That’s what this was. And because so many people had a hand innot only allowing, but working daily supporting the depth of this evil. I don’t think a human mind can comprehend it honestly. The evil that man can do….
And still, this woman, and so many others, came through this and created a life. A life where they didn’t scream to the world that they were owed, didn’t lay down and play victim, didn’t wallow in the injustice. It’s beyond me how Holocaust survivors managed to bring normalcy to their life again. But they did. They are heroes like, no one else. Heroes, hopefully the world will never see again.
The uncomplicated story telling is perfect, as she is telling the story of her life at 13-14-15. I clung to every word. I could visualize, smell.... with the simple words of a young school girl.
It’s hard to describe how this true story impacts you. This is probably the eighth or even 10th book with the holocaust as a theme or the backdrop That I have read in the last 9 or 10 months. This story leaves you in deep though - aching for the survivors. I so want to know this woman. I so want to restore - change - the past for these Holocaust victims.
Victims on this massive scale, it’s nearly impossible to fathom. I truly don’t think any human being can in anyway relate to this kind of experience, unless they actually lived it. It is so grotesque, disturbing, distorted… Any and every word that means pure evil. That’s what this was. And because so many people had a hand innot only allowing, but working daily supporting the depth of this evil. I don’t think a human mind can comprehend it honestly. The evil that man can do….
And still, this woman, and so many others, came through this and created a life. A life where they didn’t scream to the world that they were owed, didn’t lay down and play victim, didn’t wallow in the injustice. It’s beyond me how Holocaust survivors managed to bring normalcy to their life again. But they did. They are heroes like, no one else. Heroes, hopefully the world will never see again.
January 1, 2017
This book is a must read in my opinion. It is a beautifully written account of a young girl and her experiences surviving the Holocaust. I appreciated her perspective. I have read a number of books about this time period but this was the first one where I felt they were able to adequately describe what it felt like to be slowly dehumanized. The humiliation and fear she faced. The times when she was able to naively adjust to the new way of living only to have it stripped away again and face a new degrading horror. The descriptions in the book are so moving. I read each page with a lump in my throat and tears in my eyes. You can never truly understand what it was like for the millions but I believe that this book gives you a glimpse of what they felt. Stories such as this one seem almost like a myth now. So much time has passed and it is just unfathomable that such evil could exist. It happened though. It is our duty to remember and prevent it from ever happening again.
"And as the world grew more and more advanced technologically, it seemed to grow more and more tolerant of terror and suffering. My fears have returned. And yet my hope, my dream, of a world free of human cruelty and violence has not vanished. My hope is that learning about past evils will help us avoid them in the future. My hope is that learning what horrors can result from prejudice and intolerance, we can cultivate a commitment to fight prejudice and intolerance." - Livia Bitton - Jackson
"And as the world grew more and more advanced technologically, it seemed to grow more and more tolerant of terror and suffering. My fears have returned. And yet my hope, my dream, of a world free of human cruelty and violence has not vanished. My hope is that learning about past evils will help us avoid them in the future. My hope is that learning what horrors can result from prejudice and intolerance, we can cultivate a commitment to fight prejudice and intolerance." - Livia Bitton - Jackson
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November 25, 2013Content notes to help you decide whether to read or recommend this book:
The author was 13 and living in a Hungarian town in Czechoslovakia at the start of her memoir and she was 14 at the end of the war. She would have been murdered on arrival at Auschwitz if the man sorting the adult women from the elderly and children had not liked the look of her blonde hair and told her 'you're sixteen now'. She must have been one of the youngest survivors of the camps.
As well as being in Auschwitz twice in unimaginable conditions, she was in a forced-labour camp, a munitions factory at Augsberg (where managers were genuinely shocked by the condition of the Auschwitz inmates they had ordered to help boost production, and where they were treated like ordinary prisoners and recovered a measure of physical and mental health), and a sub-camp at Dachau. She survived with her brother and mother.
Her descriptions are vivid (often horrifically so), but not deliberately graphic. She describes her emotions and thoughts with clarity and eloquence. There is no sexual content at all. She behaves with compassion at all times and her will to survive is unbroken.
I consider this book suitable for some young adults. A note from my Holocaust education training: don't try to explain. This subject can't be understood and it's unhelpful and agonising to try. We can only remember.
The author was 13 and living in a Hungarian town in Czechoslovakia at the start of her memoir and she was 14 at the end of the war. She would have been murdered on arrival at Auschwitz if the man sorting the adult women from the elderly and children had not liked the look of her blonde hair and told her 'you're sixteen now'. She must have been one of the youngest survivors of the camps.
As well as being in Auschwitz twice in unimaginable conditions, she was in a forced-labour camp, a munitions factory at Augsberg (where managers were genuinely shocked by the condition of the Auschwitz inmates they had ordered to help boost production, and where they were treated like ordinary prisoners and recovered a measure of physical and mental health), and a sub-camp at Dachau. She survived with her brother and mother.
Her descriptions are vivid (often horrifically so), but not deliberately graphic. She describes her emotions and thoughts with clarity and eloquence. There is no sexual content at all. She behaves with compassion at all times and her will to survive is unbroken.
I consider this book suitable for some young adults. A note from my Holocaust education training: don't try to explain. This subject can't be understood and it's unhelpful and agonising to try. We can only remember.
September 2, 2013
Definitely one of the best Holocaust memoirs I have read and I would highly recommend. The writing is superb and the story is great.
March 12, 2026
This was a very empowering story
Kind of slow at certain points, and lots of facts thrown at you, but overall it was a good story of perseverance and love
Kind of slow at certain points, and lots of facts thrown at you, but overall it was a good story of perseverance and love
March 23, 2016
Poor Elli Friedmann. She was one of the many victims of the Holocaust. I Have Lived a Thousand Years by Livia Bitton-Jackson is in her point of view. The description is amazing. I learned so much about the Holocaust from this book. "The Red Cross food trucks were a Nazi trap: They lined us up at the window with the ruse of the warm soup distribution in order to hit us more easily with machine-gun fire."
That point of view was very effective in this book. Since this book is like a biography, it needs to focus on her. This book also shows all the different kinds of persecution they had to endure better. If it was 3rd person, it would be less effective. This is a part where Elli is watching a woman be punished for not working: "You missed, you stupid Junge (boy in German)! She’s only fainted. You should’ve struck her dead!"
This book is a very good book on the Holocaust. History is usually written by the victors. These people won nothing. They lost everything. This book is one of the few that actually explain why, in a war, the people trying to take over have it wrong. I rated this book 4 stars because it was a little hard to keep reading. I would recommend it to anyone who wants to learn about the persecuted side of the Holocaust.
Kaden Gordon
7-RED
234 pages
Holocaust Review
That point of view was very effective in this book. Since this book is like a biography, it needs to focus on her. This book also shows all the different kinds of persecution they had to endure better. If it was 3rd person, it would be less effective. This is a part where Elli is watching a woman be punished for not working: "You missed, you stupid Junge (boy in German)! She’s only fainted. You should’ve struck her dead!"
This book is a very good book on the Holocaust. History is usually written by the victors. These people won nothing. They lost everything. This book is one of the few that actually explain why, in a war, the people trying to take over have it wrong. I rated this book 4 stars because it was a little hard to keep reading. I would recommend it to anyone who wants to learn about the persecuted side of the Holocaust.
Kaden Gordon
7-RED
234 pages
Holocaust Review
October 18, 2010
If you are WWII buff like me you have to read this. I read it with the impression that it is another book about concentration camp life and eventually the liberation. But I was so impressed by her abilty to tell a story recalling what it was like as 13 year old going through it all. I was oddley unemotional through it all, all the things you have read before or seen about Death and labor camps, but her expirences and determantion were incrediable. When they were liberated I read it like any other chapter but when I read the word Freedom I wept, I am talking cried out loud. I had to put the book down and just feel the moment. I had not realized I was living this journey as she told her story. I felt a deep desperation as i read and an over whelming gratefulness when "we " found freedom. A must read to "feel" life again and be grateful we have the freedoms we do.
August 25, 2016
Considering the subject matter, I don't know if I can say I liked this book, but it is a 4-star book.
Ellie is a 13 year old girl growing up in Hungary in March 1944. When the Nazi's invade, she can no longer go to school, talk to her friends ... and she has to wear a yellow star.
Childhood ends for Ellie as she and her family are first moved to a ghetto and then to the labor camps.
Ellie's story is about family, faith, and the will to survive.
I don't know why but lately I find myself reading more and more books with WW-II and / or the Holocaust as the main subject matter. I think it's important that we remember history and what has gone before us so we can avoid such atrocities as we go forward. I think it's especially important for the younger generation to read about the Holocaust, especially as I don't think the schools teach this in history any more.
Ellie is a 13 year old girl growing up in Hungary in March 1944. When the Nazi's invade, she can no longer go to school, talk to her friends ... and she has to wear a yellow star.
Childhood ends for Ellie as she and her family are first moved to a ghetto and then to the labor camps.
Ellie's story is about family, faith, and the will to survive.
I don't know why but lately I find myself reading more and more books with WW-II and / or the Holocaust as the main subject matter. I think it's important that we remember history and what has gone before us so we can avoid such atrocities as we go forward. I think it's especially important for the younger generation to read about the Holocaust, especially as I don't think the schools teach this in history any more.
October 16, 2007
I just previewed this book to see if I could recommend it to my students, as we are currently studying the Holocaust. I have read many books on the Holocaust, but this one especially moved me. Perhaps because it is written by a woman (Livia Bitton-Jackson)who endured Auschwitz and various other camps when she was only thirteen years old. Livia's perspective is especially poignant. When liberated, a German civilian approached her and expressed amazement that someone her age could have survived. When Livia asked the woman how old she thought she was, the woman replied, "Sixty or sixty-five." Livia was only fourteen when she was liberated. I highly recommend this book.
March 5, 2012
I could not put this book down. I will admit it was quite depressing at times as a "human being" that these terrible thing's took place and quite scary that something of this magnitude occured. The writing in this book is simple and straight foward. The descriptions (camps,food,clothing,injuries,emotions ect)written about in the book are very "real" to the reader. My heart goes out to the author and her family. There are no words to say how sorry I am to them for this terrible injustice. This book should be a must read in every school across the country. I will pass it on to my four children as such in my home so that they can read and remember "just how hard life can be."
December 18, 2008
At 13, Livia Bitton-Jackson finds hope and miracles while journeying through the massive horror of the Holocaust. She reminded me to pause to listen to people who have stories that must be told. And to not turn away from injustices.
October 19, 2017
There are but a handful of books who manage to take you to the heart of the nightmare that was the Holocaust. This is simply one of them. The pain, the horror and then that small simmer of hope - that too through the eyes of a 14 year old. This book is a must read.
June 13, 2018
Wrenching memoir set in Hungary during the Nazi occupation. Author writes her story as a 13 year old, first in a ghetto, then in Auschwitz during the last year of the war. Considered a y/a novel but perhaps best read by adults.
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