Great Book - Ruth Williams

books:


	• I Have Lived a Thousand Years: Growing Up in the Holocaust Livia Bitton-Jackson Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing, 1997 - 224 pages average customer review:based on 162 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

An amazing book

I have read many books about the Holocaust but this is the first one that actually made me feel that I was right there in Auschwitz with the author.

Livia Bitton-Jackson takes you there in living color and she doesn't paint a pretty picture. She is an amazing writer and I'm looking forward to buying more of her books.

This book is really sad. Here is this brave little girl who single-handedly saves her mother and brother from death yet the mother still loves her brother best. I can really relate to this.

Breath Taking

Much respect is due to this author; she has been exceedingly generous to attempt to tell us, people who can never know, about the extraordinary suffering to which she was subjected. Her writing is simple and straight-forward; scenes that she so plainly descibes are haunting. At times I found myself thinking that the author was too sweet to be true, but these are her memories, and this book is her life. I thank her for imparting to the reader a segment of her life that, truly, when you think about it, defies the written word. An important book, most definitely worth reading.

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Deeply compelling

This book was greatly written and very emotional. It was recommended to me by a former American History teacher and I was grateful.

Great Book - Ruth Williams

I have Lived a Thousand Years by Livia Bitton-Jackson is a disturbingly honest memoir of a thirteen year old Jewish girl living in the Nazi concentration camps during the Holocaust. The experience of living in the death camp Auschwitz is graphically shocking and distressing, but also miraculous because she actually survives. The story is told in the voice of Elli, in a direct present tense and, although a bit simple, the words and thoughts do seem to come from the mouth of a teenage girl.
At the beginning, it shows Elli's pending growth from girlhood to womanhood, with her sparked interest in her appearance, her mother's approval and of course boys. While this serves to make the book more realistic, as Elli has typical teenager concerns, it also makes her story even more painful as she is forced to mature and take the place of "mother", without really experiencing her role as a child. The descriptions of her life before the invasion, from her simply house in her hometown to her anxious ambitions of school, cause the reader to identify and bond with her. Thus, when she is ripped from her old life, when her hair is shaven and her family is separated, the reader can better empathize that it is happening to them.
Her detailed writing of life in the concentration camp causes a true emotional disturbance within the reader. The switched roles between her mother and her, the worms in her soup, the physical, mental and psychological abuse is all well documented. While reading this book, there were many times that I had to take a moment. A part of me wanted to put it down because it was so brutally honest but it is that same brutal honesty that made me unable to stop reading for more than ten seconds. The book is written in such a way that the reader experiences her doubts, fears, punishments and hopes, however unrealistic. Surprisingly, the book does not stir contempt for the "other side", as the protagonist does not place direct blame. She is angry, but she sees the other sides as human, making her story even more endearing. In my opinion, the book reminds us of how fragile any situation is but also of how much adversity the human spirit can endure without being broken. Even when broken, there is still hope for renewal as we often underestimate how much we can persevere, especially in today's society where we have so much at our fingertips. The author lived through what many in our society could not being to comprehend because it seems so impossible. It is fitting for people of all ages upward of puberty, and I would especially recommend it to teenagers as it offers an uplifting spirit of hope, as well as a renewed gratefulness and encouraged perspective of life.

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A thousand years

Livia Bitton-Jackson's I Have Lived a Thousand Years is her story of life during WWII and the holocaust. Livia, known as Elli, was 13 years old when her family was forced out of their home and sent to Auschwitz. Her brother and father were sent to the male side of the camp, and Livia and her mother were sent to the female side. Because Livia was 13 years old, and still a child, she would have been sent to the gas chambers. But an officer took a liking to Elli's blonde hair, told her to lie and say she was 16, and led her to the path towards the camp, and away from the gas chambers.
Throughout her time at the camp, she and her mother kept each other's strengths up, even through the injury that would permanently disable her mother. They suffered through working in pits of feces, eating congealed soup and drinking from a small, murky water pond. They survived a decimation, and even found Bubi, Elli's brother.
When they found Bubi, they made a vow to stay together and became stronger. They waited until liberation day, but right before they were to be liberated, the SS guards loaded them into cattle cars and in hopes of taking them, shooting them all, and getting rid of the bodies so that the Americans had no way of finding the inmates.
Elli, her mother, and Bubi were all able to survive the cattle cars, the shooting, and made it to see liberation. They returned to their village in hope of hearing good news about Elli's father, but unfortunately, he didn't make it through the war. They have a mourning period and then contact all the people they know in America in hopes of being able to migrate there.
They eventually gain their visas and when Elli sees the beautiful statue of Liberty, she knows that she is home and can start rebuilding her life.
Her story is a story that can touch anyone. It vividly describes her struggles and makes one question how man can be so cruel. The way the book is written makes the reader feel like the author is personally retelling her story to him/her. I highly recommend this book - you will definitely get lost in her words.

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