I Have Lived a Thousand Years by Livia Bitton-Jackson
I came across I Have Lived a Thousand Years: Growing Up in the Holocaust by Livia Bitton-Jacksonover at Becky’s Book Reviews. Becky, like me, devours books about the Holocaust. I’m so glad to have found somebody else who can’t get enough of these types of books because frankly everybody thinks that I’m weird for reading so many of them.
I Have Lived a Thousand Years is the memoir of Ellie Friedman (now Livia Bitton-Jackson) and begins when she is a thirteen-year old in Hungary, the summer of 1943. Changes are beginning to happen, her family’s simple life is beginning to change. The Hungarian police begin staging raids on the Jew’s homes, shutting down businesses, requiring registration, Jews must now wear the yellow star and hand over all their possessions. School is shut down and all the Jews are forced to abandon their homes and live in the ghetto.
The ghetto is short lived when Ellie’s family is deported to Auschwitz. The book chronicles Ellie’s suffering in Auschwitz, several other labor camps, train deportations and back to Auschwitz again. Ellie is forced to grow up quickly as she takes care of her mother and is reunited with her almost dead brother. As I was reading, I kept thinking to myself, that there is no way that Ellie and her mother should still be alive. The evil that they witnessed, the work, the starvation, the cold, the heat, death all around them, the savagery of it all is unbearable.
When liberated, Ellie speaks with a middle-aged German woman who comments that the work must have been hard because of her age.
At my age? What does she mean? “We didn’t get enough to eat. Because of starvation. Not because of my age.”
“I meant, it must have been harder for the older people.”
For older people? “How old do you think I am?”
She looks at me uncertainly. “Sixty? Sixty-two?”
“Sixty? I am fourteen. Fourteen years old.”
She gives a little shriek and makes the sign of the cross. In horror and disbelief she walks away, and joins the crowd of German civilians near the station house.
So this is liberation. It’s come.
I am fourteen years old, and I have lived a thousand years.
Isn’t that imagery amazing yet sickening? Elli’s narration is strong, visual, and leaves you with a lingering impression long after the words are gone. Before the concentration camps, Ellie would write poems and meticulously copy them into a notebook. That love of words certainly comes across in her memoir.
I really liked what Livia Bitton-Jackson wrote in the introduction. It’s a bit lengthy, so please forgive me, but I felt the message is so important.
My hope is that learning about past evils will help us to 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. It is for this reason that I wrote my recollections of the horror. Only one who was there can truly tell the tale. And I was there.
For you, the third generation, the Holocaust has slipped into the realm of history, or legend. Or, into the realm of sensational subjects on the silver screen. Reading my personal account I believe you will feel – you will know – that the Holocaust was neither a legend nor Hollywood fiction but a lesson for the future. A lesson to help future generations prevent the causes of the twentieth-century catastrophe from being transmitted into the twenty-first.
My stories are of gas chambers, shootings, electrified fences, torture, scorching sun, mental abuse, and constant threat of death.
But they are also stories of faith, hope, triumph, and love. They are stories of perseverance, loyalty, courage in the face of overwhelming odds, and of never giving up.
My story is my message: Never give up.
I highly recommend reading I Have Lived a Thousand Years: Growing Up in the Holocaust by Livia Bitton-Jackson. It’s one that you shouldn’t miss.
I seem to be doing a lot of themed reading this year. The following are reviews of other Holocaust related books that I’ve reviewed this year: The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom, Torn Thread by Anne Isaacs, The True Story of Hansel & Gretel by Louise Murphy, The Boy Who Dared by Susan Campbell Bartoletti, Sirens and Spies by Janet Taylor Lisle, Number the Stars by Lois Lowry, The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak, Yellow Star by Jennifer Roy, The Boy in the Striped Pajamas by John Boyne, and The Devil’s Arithmetic by Jane Yolen.
What’s the Holocaust book that you think I should read next?
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Category: Book Reviews, Memoir/Biography, Nonfiction
Tags: A-D Author, Genocide, Holocaust, I-L Title, World War II
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I’ve got this book on the top of my TBR stack!
Have you read Elie Wiesel’s Night yet? If not, you should add that to your list!
on May 31st, 2008 at 5:55 amNatasha – try to find Anne Frank Remembered. I would send you my copy, but it is my sister’s and I am embarrassed that she and her friend (while in high school) wrote notes to each other in the cover in pink highlighter. Ugh!!
Anyway,I agree with “smallworld” that Night is also a powerful read–and also Primo Levi’s memoirs (can’t think of the title–maybe If This is a Man?). I’ve also heard Nymeth talking about Briar Rose by Yolen (I think I’ve mentioned that before).
I’m going to put this one on my list–thanks for the beautiful review.
on May 31st, 2008 at 8:28 amI don’t think you are weird for reading so many Holocaust books. When I was in jr high and high school I read pretty much anything I could get my hands on that was about the Holocaust. I wrote several papers and did several projects on the subject. My friends all thought I was morbid but it was not like that at all. I even had one of my teachers ask if she could read my notes and if I would do a presentation for the class because I knew so much about the subject. When I got to college my focus shifted to different and more varied topics but I still have files and files of information and a good list of books on the subject. I have not read many books on the subject on the last 10 years and really should start reading the newer books.
on May 31st, 2008 at 9:10 amWith all that said…I have read this book and its sequel. One of my roommates in college had to read it for a class and I ended up reading it when I saw it sitting around the apartment. It is beautifully written and I too really liked what she said in the intro.
Have you read In My Hands yet by Irene Gut Opdyke? What about The Cage by Ruth Minsky Sender? I loved that one. It was so powerful. And did you know that there are two more books, I believe, in this series of memoirs? Livia Bitton-Jackson continues her life-stories. I definitely recommend going forward with them.
on May 31st, 2008 at 9:29 amHave you read Number the Stars by Lois Lowry? It’s a short, but very powerful book about two friends (one Jewish, the other one not) caught up in the Nazi occupation of Denmark. Just wonderful ;>).
on May 31st, 2008 at 10:36 amThanks for the review. I really have to look for this one.
I did the Themed Reading Challenge on WWII so I also read quite a bit of these books this year, and I think my favourite was Maus by Art Spiegelmen. Make sure you read both volumes if you do decide to pick it up, though. They form a single story.
And like Trish said, I can’t recommend Briar Rose by Jane Yolen highly enough.
on May 31st, 2008 at 11:25 amYou are definitely not alone; both my mom and I can’t get enough of WWII stories. I recently read The Avengers: A Jewish War Story (click here for my review) … it opened my eyes to so much that I didn’t know about the Jewish experience outside of the camps during WWII. I highly recommend it – so much so that I’m giving it away in a contest on my site that will start of June 8.
on May 31st, 2008 at 12:42 pmWow that sounds like a very good book! I don’t love love Holocaust books, but I do usually like the ones I end up reading. Have you read Briar Rose? It is a holocaust novel, but with a fantasy bent to it. I really liked it.
on May 31st, 2008 at 9:16 pmThis book sounds really good. I have already added “The Boy Who Dared” based on your review.
on June 1st, 2008 at 8:39 amThe quote about how old she is gave me the shivers! Yikes! What would it be like to have lived like that?
on June 1st, 2008 at 5:00 pmI enjoyed Man’s Search For Meaning by Viktor Frankel. I read Bernard Schlinck’s The Reader in one sitting; it’s actually postwar Germany…
on June 2nd, 2008 at 5:53 amI can’t even imagine 14 being mistaken for 60. Words escape me.
on June 2nd, 2008 at 10:52 amI read The Hiding Place, and found it very touching. I also read Elie Wiesel’s Night. I have the YA book Number the Stars, by Lois Lowry, on my TBR list, as well as Primo Levi’s Survival in Auschwitz. There is a great body of literature out there on the topic!
on June 2nd, 2008 at 4:54 pmI am also adding this one to my TBR list. It sounds like an important book and a story that needed to be told. I also have had a long interest in the Holocaust and like Jeanette did a big project about it in middle school which I presented at different schools in the area.
Read The Lost by Daniel Mendelsohn. I reviewed it here:
http://booksandcooks.blogspot.com/2007/08/lost-search-for-six-of-six-million.html
and named it one of my top ten books of 2007. It is from a different perspective, but was a fascinating and compelling read. The author’s brother contacted me after reading my review, which was quite something!
on June 3rd, 2008 at 8:18 amSmallWorld – I have read Night but before I started this blog. It’s so short that I’d like to reread it just so I can review it.
Trish – That’s okay. I’ll pick up Anne Frank Remembered from my library. Everybody keeps recommending Briar Rose, although I keep forgetting to add it to the TBR. I’m going to go put it on hold right now.
Jeanette – Thanks for the confirmation! I know a lot of people who will NOT read books like this because they are to depressing and they only read for pleasure. While I do plenty of reading for pleasure, I do get some type of satisfaction from reading about things that inform, and change my perspective on life.
Becky – Thanks for turning me on to this book in the first place. I had no idea that there were more! Off to the library I go . . .
Kristi – I have read Number the Stars. I liked it a lot. My review is here:
http://blog.mawbooks.com/2008/04/27/number-the-stars-by-lois-lowry/
Nymeth – I just barely heard of Muas not that long ago (I think when I reviewed The True Story of Hansel and Gretel). I do want to check it out.
Heather – I hope I win it then! I want to read it!
Kim L. – Another Briar Rose recommendation. I must get to this one soon.
Framed – I hope you like both and am curious to how you’ll like The Boy Who Dared when you get to it.
Rebecca Reid – That’s the quote that made me want to read this book in the first place. So sad.
Care – I’ll look into those. Thanks!
Kathleen – Can you imagine?! I don’t think you’d ever recover.
Gentle Reader – There are a LOT of books out there on this topic. It’s hard to decide where to even start.
Tara – I’ll be making my way over to your review. Especially as it’s in your top ten for 2007!
on June 4th, 2008 at 12:05 amthis book was so freakin’ good!!! livia writes awesome!!! im gonna read all of ur books! -X
on May 15th, 2009 at 5:46 pmShadowthief23 – I’m glad you liked the book! I want to continue to read her books as well.
on May 17th, 2009 at 12:42 am