I Have Lived a Thousand Years: growing up in the holocaust

Author:
Livia Bitton-Jackson
Illustrator:
Published by:
Turtleback Books
Suitable for ages:
15
to
100
ISBN:
0689823959
Reviewer:
Reviewer:
Fotini Hamplová

The memoir of a young Jewish girl who survived life in Auschwitz concentration camp. She was only 13 when she was sent to the camp and so we live through the experience through the eyes of a child.

I find that reading the memoirs of survivor is one of the most profitable and engaging ways to learn about the history of the persecution of Jewish people during WWII. Reading these books gives you a more detailed experience of what happened with emphasis on the people, their personalities and their behaviour. We learn something about how different people responded to the pressures of that time.

This book is well-written and it is a good way to learn about this important time. It is good to look at the 20th century horrors and learn something about what our societies are capable of. Perhaps we will learn from our past and be more careful with the vices that we are capable of. This book is a good opportunity to engage with this history. It is well written, clear, honest and interesting.

I find it profitable to read more than one memoir from the concentration camps because this allows the reader to see how different personalities - each with differing childhoods - managed to survive in the harshest conditions imaginable. What was it in them that pulled them and kept them going to the end?

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WWII, Jewish history, Hitler

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