I Have Lived A Thousand Years: Growing Up In The Holocaust

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Summary: A wrenching story of survival in Auschwitz.
Review: This wrenching, searing story of the pain, cruelty. and suffering of a young Jewish girl in Auschwitz is the true story of author Livia Bitton-Jackson, born Ellie Friedmann in Czechoslovakia. Ellie Friedmann was just thirteen when she and her mother were taken to the Auschwitz concentration camp. Despite pain, suffering, and terrible living and working conditions, Elli and her mother managed to stay alive, and the one thing that kept them going through the worst of times is the dream that one day their family would be reunited again. Destined to take its place among the finest of Holocaust literature.

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Summary: The best Holocaust book I have read for a long time.
Review: The Holocaust was a horrible time for everyone. The Holocaust began when the Germans were losing World War II. Hitler, a German dictator, wanted to feel powerful, even when his country was almost defeated. Since the Americans were too strong to be hurt, Hitler began to believe that all Jews were different and did not deserve to be treated equally. By abusing and killing them, he could get his sense of power and make another complication for the Americans. He began sending the Jews in small countries, like Hungary, to concentration camps. There they were forced to work long hours of labor with little food. In these camps there were rooms, called gas ovens, where Jews were killed if they were too weak or there wasn't enough room in the camps. Sometimes hundreds were killed at a time. Very few Jews during the Holocaust survived, but those that did can tell us how they were mistreated just because of their beliefs. Livia Bitton-Jackson is one of those survivors and in her book, "I Have Lived a Thousand Years" she retells her history of growing up in the Holocaust filled with suffering and pain.
In a small town called Somorja, a thirteen year old girl named Ellike lived with her mother, father, and her brother named Bubi. This was before Hitler invaded her town and Elli was happy. She went to school, attended her synagogue, and wrote poetry. She studied very hard in school because she wanted to enroll in a nice school in Budapest where Bubi went. Budapest was on a very nice side of town with big buildings and paved streets. On Somorja there were no fancy schools, buildings, and the only paved street was the main road and Elli dreamed of seeing it. But her dreams were shattered when the Germans invaded Budapest during the night. Luckily Elli's brother dodged the Germans and got on a train back to Somorja before they had a chance to close the train station. Most of Bubi's classmates were caught and shipped to concentration camps. Next, Hitler started to pass laws. The Jewish schools were closed. They were forced to surrender all of their jewelry and most valued possessions. They had to wear a yellow start to show they were Jews. They could not talk to Christians. Finally, they were moved to the ghetto, a small cramped area where twenty Jewish families were forced to live in the same small yard. Sometimes, there were eight different families living in the same house. A few days before the relocation of that specific ghetto, German soldiers came. They demanded that everyone bring any books, scrolls, or even pictures to them for safe keeping while the Jews were moved. They were hesitant but they had no choice, so they carried all of their books into the front yard. The Germans later burned the pile that had so many religious scrolls and bibles in it. Three days after that, they were put in cattle cars where 85 of them stayed for four days with out food or water. They were being transported to Auschwitz, the concentration camp. After the long cattle car ride and arriving in Auschwitz, all the children younger than 16 and over 50 were sent one way and the other girls were sent the other. Elli was 13 and the officer that was supervising the sorting should have sent her in the proper group. However, he saw that she had blond hair and let her go with her mother. The Germans prized long blond hair and blue eyes. If the officer had made Elli go with the younger children she would have been killed in a gas oven like Elli's aunt was. Then, the people that survived the "sorting" were shaved bald, put in showers, and given a gray dress and a pair of shoes. They weren't really anyone anymore. They were just Auschwitz workers.
This story about the Holocaust seems to sad to be true. I don't see how anyone could be that evil to another human. Hitler killed hundreds of children and adults just to feel powerful. After Elli was freed, a german woman came up to her and thought that she was 62 years old because of how weak and bruised she was. This story is really sad but it is also a warning about how much racism can hurt others. I would suggest he book "I Have Lived a Thousand Years" by Livia Bitton-Jackson to anyone who wants to learn about the Holocaust.

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Summary: awsome!
Review: Well I think that it was very cool that everyone gave it 5 stars. It definitley deserves it too. Its an awsome book! I love it and think Livia Bitton Jackson is an amazing person!

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Summary: A Great Book!!!
Review: If you haven't already read this book....READ IT!!!!!!. This book is a non-fiction story of a Holocaust survivor. Jackson tells of horrifying experiences and the descriptions may be very graphic, but they are very descriptive; they tell us how everything looked and felt like. This book is one of the BEST books I have ever read. EVERYONE SHOULD READ THIS BOOK!!!!!!!

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Summary: heart wrenching
Review: I read this book. I still think of it even months after I read it. Livia, you are a modern day heroin. How can you even breath after going through something like that? What makes you want to go on? How can people turn into what you describe. Horrendous!

Thank you for writing this book. All must read this.

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Summary: Hollz Review
Review: This book was very dramatic and at the same time very heartwarming. In the begining of the book it went by very slow and I wanted to stop the book. It began to get interesting toward the late middle of the book. I like to read books about the Holecost because it is so real. I also read The Cage, and I think that book was a lot better than this one. Livia Bitton-Jackson who is a survivor from the holocaust wrote I Have Lived a Thousand Years and she tells her a very dramatic story. The holocaust was a terrible time for Jews. The Nazi's did terrible things to the Jews, such as, they were striped of all of their positions, they were gassed,tortured, starved, forced to work and some were even the subject of medical experiments.The main character was a girl named Elli. She lives with her mother father and her little brother Bubi. Elli is a happy girl that lives in a small town called Somorja. She goes to school but always dreams of going to a Budapest school because it's in a much nicer town. Hitler and his soldiers came into her town and captured Elli and her family. Bubi was able to escape from the Nazi's and got on a train and left town. Elli her mother and father were captured. Elli and her family were shipped off to the concentration camps where they had to wear yellow stars on their chests- a sign that they were Jews. Hitler took away pretty much everything from them. They couldn't talk to anyone and if they didn't do what they were told they were killed. They were also forced to give the Nazi's their jewelry and belongings. Later on Elli and her family and a few other families were shipped off into the Ghetto, which was a smaller camp. The Germans took away all of their books and the rest of their possessions and burned them.
Three days later they arrived at a concentration camp called Auschwitz. They had survived the journey but were very sick and weak because they hadn't eaten in four days. The Germans separated the children from the adults. Elli was thirteen and would have been separated from her mother, but for some reason the soldier saw that Elli had blonde hair and let her go with her mother. All of the children were killed in the gas chambers. After they were sorted and separated the Germans made them shave their heads bald and gave them gray gowns and were the ugliest things ever. The Germans forced the Jews into slavery. They were forced into labor and were starved.he book forces the reader to think about some really horrible stuff. But the reader does get to see how Elli gets out of this terrible life, how she survives, and how she goes on living I thought that was pretty cool. This book had its ups and its downs. My favorite thing about this book was defiantly the topic. I think the holocaust was a very interesting time to learn about, except I couldn't believe that there were really people out there that could torture people like that just because of there religion or skin color. One of the things I really like was that the book really got into great detail about Elli and her adventures of the camps. I could really picture all of the camps and everyone in my head, and what went on through out the story.

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Summary: A really great book
Review: I love this book. My english teacher assigned me to read this book a few days ago. It only took a few pages to get hooked to this book. Lots of events were shocking, and it made me realize how harshly Jews were treated. This book is great, and I reccomend this to anyone.

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Summary: Fluffy's Review
Review: If you've read a lot of books about the Shoah, sometimes it seems like they all start to sound the same, only with different names and locations, but most good memorable books and memoirs on the subject have things setting them apart. This book, for example, is the only one I can remember having read so far where the subject (Elli) went through the camps with her mother; all of the other books I've read so far have been about siblings or friends or cousins sticking together in the camps. Sadly, there aren't more books about the mother-daughter relationship in the camps because most of the girls who went there with their mothers were immediately separated from them.

Besides having the little-represented angle of how a mother and daughter supported and loved one another in the camps (particularly after Elli's mother has her injury), there are also other things in here making it a unique story. The family in this book is also smaller than most of the other families in books about the Shoah, with only Elli, her brother, their parents, and their aunt, as opposed to large families with several sisters or brothers. There are also many details about everything that happened to them in the various places they were in, instead of just giving vague descriptions of what they went through or just focusing on how they stuck together instead of dwelling on the specifics of what they went through. It's definite that Elli and her mother had their chances for survival improved because they were selected for the transport to the factory in Augsburg, where they got better food and treatment as opposed to being forced to do the type of things they did in Plaszow. However, since there are so many horrific details and specifics given, this wouldn't be the type of book for a younger reader, but rather a mature teenager. And I love books written in the present tense; it draws you right in and makes the action even more compelling, wondering what's going to happen next. Reading or writing in the past tense just doesn't have that same deep emotional impact.

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Summary: I have lived a thousand years
Review: During the holocaust millions of Jews were killed and tortured just because they were Jews. Livia Bitton-Jackson who is a survivor from the holocaust wrote I Have Lived a Thousand Years and she tells her a very dramatic story. The holocaust was a terrible time for Jews. They were captured by the Nazi's, put in prisons, gassed, tortured, starved, forced to work and some were even the subject of medical experiments Have Lived a Thousand Years is about a girl named Elli and her life during the holocaust. She lives with her mother father and her little brother Bubi. Elli is a happy girl that lives in a small town called Somorja. She goes to school but always dreams of going to a Budapest school because it's in a much nicer town. Hitler and his soldiers came into her town and captured Elli and her family. Bubi was able to escape from the Nazi's and got on a train and left town. Elli her mother and father were captured. Elli and her family were shipped off to the concentration camps where they had to wear yellow stars on their chests- a sign that they were Jews. Hitler took away pretty much everything from them. They couldn't talk to anyone and if they didn't do what they were told they were killed. They were also forced to give the Nazi's their jewelry and belongings. Later on Elli and her family and a few other families were shipped off into the Ghetto, which was a smaller camp. The Germans took away all of their books and the rest of their possessions and burned them.
Three days later they arrived at a concentration camp called Auschwitz. They had survived the journey but were very sick and weak because they hadn't eaten in four days. The Germans separated the children from the adults. Elli was thirteen and would have been separated from her mother, but for some reason the soldier saw that Elli had blonde hair and let her go with her mother. All of the children were killed in the gas chambers. After they were sorted and separated the Germans made them shave their heads bald and gave them gray gowns and were the ugliest things ever. The Germans forced the Jews into slavery. They were forced into labor and were starved. I can't tell you the ending so you will have to read it to find out.
This story was very sad and made me angry. The Holocaust was a terrible thing and Hitler was a criminal. The book forces the reader to think about some really horrible stuff. But the reader does get to see how Elli gets out of this terrible life, how she survives, and how she goes on living I thought that was pretty cool. This book had its ups and its downs. My favorite thing about this book was defiantly the topic. I think the holocaust was a very interesting time to learn about, except I couldn't believe that there were really people out there that could torture people like that just because of there religion or skin color. One of the things I really like was that the book really got into great detail about Elli and her adventures of the camps. I could really picture all of the camps and everyone in my head, and what went on through out the story. The good thing about this book each chapter was different it didn't drag on about useless stuff. Every time I read a chapter it was different and had something new and exciting to read about I didn't think this book was boring at all. I couldn't imagine being in a camp with only one piece of clothing and a shaved head and starving to death. I cant go threw an hour without eating. Although this book is sad and you can really feel the pain that Elli is going threw. For instance in the book sometimes she yells and it just makes me want to yell. It's a book that I actually like IM not really a regular reader but I enjoyed this book. I would recommend this book to almost all age's from probably 8th grade and up. The book doesn't really have strong language its just sometimes a little confusing and young children may not understand it. You have to be able to see where Elli is coming from. If you like dramatic and sad books about people's lives then this is the book for you. There is also some action scenes towards the end also if you like that. This was a good book and everyone should read it.

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Summary: Ashley H., Miller Place N.Y.
Review: I have read MANY holocaust books in my life; Night, Diary of Anne Franck, The Upstairs Room, Milkweed, Hilter stole pink rabbit and so many more that i can just bore you all day. But this book is the only book that is about the holocaust that truely touches me in a way that brings tears to my eyes. The first time i read it i cried and sobbed and everything. This happened the 2nd, 3rd and 4th time. For a story that you want to truely touch your life, read this book!