I Have Lived A Thousand Years: Growing Up In The Holocaust
I’ve read a lot of Holocaust memoirs, and this one is a standout. Bitton-Jackson does a stellar job of describing her experiences trying to make it through the war. As a young Jewish girl in Hungary, she was insulated from many of the effects of the war until 1944.
The final year of the war brought incredible suffering: at 13 she was rounded up with her family and moved into a Jewish ghetto, where she was separated from her father and brother. After transportation to Auschwitz and surviving the selection process, inside the camp she endured torture and forced labor.
Her detailed story of survival in horrific circumstances is moving, and despite the circumstances, the book has an underlying message of hope that helps to prevent it from becoming a bleak recitation of events.
Publisher’s Description:
Livia Bitton-Jackson, born Elli L. Friedmann in Czechoslavakia, was thirteen when she, her mother, and her brother were taken to Auschwitz. They were liberated in 1945 and came to the United States on a refugee boat in 1951. This is her story, written for middle school or high school students.
If you enjoyed this book, Livia’s story continues in My Bridges of Hope, which is also excellent.
Additional Holocaust memoirs which I highly recommend include:
- The Hiding Place
by Corrie ten Boom and John and Elizabeth Sherrill
- Yellow Star
by Jennifer Roy
- Leap into Darkness: Seven Years on the Run in Wartime Europe
by Leo Bretholz with Michael Olesker
- In My Hands: Memories of a Holocaust Rescuer
by Irene Gut Opdyke
- A Jump for Life: A Survivor’s Journal from Nazi-Occupied Poland
by Ruth Altbeker Cyprys
To see all the books featured in 31 Days of Great Nonfiction Reads, go to the series page.
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This looks like one I need to read. WWII history is very interesting to me. I visited Anne Frank’s attic ‘home’ in Holland when I was a girl and the holocaust became more real to me.
That must have been an incredibly powerful experience to visit the attic where she hid.
Holocaust stories always seem to stay with me long after I’ve read them. Thanks for sharing the list of your favorite Holocaust books. My “books to read” list is already a mile long, but I think I might add a few of these anyway.
It feels weird to say that they’re one of my favorite subgenres, but they are. I find them so powerful and engrossing. Thanks for your visit & comment.
Hi!
I found you via The Nester. I’ve enjoyed looking through your posts and writing down new books! I’ll be back : )
Mimi
Thanks for letting me know that you’re enjoying the series!
this looks like a great recommendation. (adding it to my list!) the hiding place was a book that stood out to me growing up…such remarkable faith and courage.
If you want another book that really combines faith & courage, try Evidence Not Seen: A Woman’s Miraculous Faith in the Jungles of World War II
by Darlene Diebler Rose. I very reluctantly left it out of this series only because I already had so many other WWII-era books selected. It’s about a young American missionary serving in New Guinea who is imprisoned by the Japanese. It’s an amazing story.
I just requested this from my library! I can’t wait to read it. We visited the Holocaust Museum in DC earlier this year and I’ve been wanting to read more about what happened. This will be a perfect book.
Let me know what you think of it!