The Daughter of Auschwitz: My Story of Resilience, Survival and Hope

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As a memoir it reads somewhat like a history book, not as bad as some, but still a history book, so I didn't love that. This is the true story of Tova Friedman one of the youngest survivors of Auschwitz. She was only 4 years old when she was sent to the first camp with her parents after the Jewish ghetto they lived in in Poland was liquidated. She was almost 6 when her and her mother were separated from her father and sent to the extermination camp Auschwitz II or Birkenau as we know it, her father was sent to Dachau.

So, the first thing what he did, though, he made a short program for your — I think for your TV, right? And it was fabulous. The Daughter of Auschwitz is a remarkable, illuminating book written by Tova (changed from Tola in America) Friedman with the assistance of Malcolm Brabant, as she recalls her memories of those dark days of the Holocaust, and how it formed her adult life. She wants no one to forget the Holocaust, the genocide and crimes against humanity. Tova is an inspirational woman who has continued her Jewish line with children and grandchildren, much against the desires of Hitler. There are photos in the centre of the book as well, showing Tova as she grew from a small child to adulthood. This insightful, excellent memoir is one I recommend highly. In its wake came a veritable deluge of Holocaust-related non-fiction and fiction, sometimes hard to tell the two apart. Clare’s book suffered, in my opinion, from a surfeit of imagination, telling the reader things he could not possibly have remembered as a child.Tova Friedman was only four years old when she was sent to a Nazi labor camp at the start of World War II. While friends and family were murdered in front of her eyes, the only weapon that Tova and her parents possessed was the primal instinct to survive at all costs. Fate intervened when, at the age of six, Tova was sent to a gas chamber, but walked out alive, saved by German bureaucracy. Not long afterwards, she cuddled a warm corpse to hide from Nazis rounding up prisoners for the Death March to Germany. In 1944, the family arrive in Birkenau, the extermination annex of Auschwitz. “My mother helped me down to the platform, and at the age of five and ten months, I stepped into the heart of the Nazis’ belief system.” FRIEDMAN: And I remember her voice. Where are you going? I said, to the crematorium. And all the women were, like, so upset that they were screaming and crying. And I turned to the little girl next to me, and I said to her, why are they crying? Doesn't every Jewish child go to the crematorium? So we walked down. And then, we came, and we went down the steps. It was a very gigantic room. I think it was cement floor. We stood there for hours. We were freezing... My story is not that unique, except that I survived to tell it. Other children, when they arrived into Auschwitz, were taken straight to the gas chamber. They never had a chance. Nobody had a chance. Somehow I had the chance, so I have to tell it. Tova vividly describes the horrors she witnessed during her stay in the camp. Horrors no young child should ever see. She was left on her own to roam the camp with other children while their mothers worked long hours slaving for the Nazis. When the end of the war came and the Nazis were clearing the camp, preparing to flee before the Russian troops arrived Tova's mother hid her amongst the dead, saving both of their lives by avoiding going on the Nazis' final death march.

I challenge anyone to read it without being moved to tears. I cried more than I have for a long time. And yet in no way is this a morbid, self-pitying or depressing read but a real story of survival against all odds and a message of great hope. Tola Grossman was just a 5-year-old Jewish girl in 1944 when she and her parents were shipped in cattle cars to the Nazi extermination camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau. She would become one of the youngest survivors of the camp, freed as the Red Army swept across Poland and into Germany in 1945, and the depths of the horrors inflicted on the Jews of Europe became apparent. FRIEDMAN: But I can never let him up so easily. I don't think so. We're coming up to the Jewish holidays.This is no soft book, it truly relays the desperation Tola faced, her mother faced, trying to see where the next piece of bread would come from and to protect her child from almost certain death. I mean this is a book that simply begs to be read, it’s vital to keep these horrific stories alive for generations to come. There are people to this day who do not believe that these events happened, it’s all make believe. We owe it to the people who survived and to the people that perished at the hands of these evil monsters to keep shining a light on the injustice.

Included in the flood of Holocaust books were those with Auschwitz in the title, leading to emotional overload on the part of the reader; there were tattooists of Auschwitz, tailors, sisters, even singers. Auschwitz, it was clear, sold books. Tova Friedman, Co-Author, "The Daughter of Auschwitz: My Story of Resilience, Survival and Hope": Well, he was talking to me. SIMON: ...Offered to remove that tattoo on your left forearm that says A27633. What did you tell him? In a powerfully written book, THE DAUGHTER OF AUSCHWITZ (Hanover Square Press 2022), Tova Friedman recounts firsthand experiences of how she struggled to survive the most heinous crime of history, the Holocaust. She chronicles her story of survival, under the direst of circumstances, beginning with the Nazi invasion of Poland until her liberation from Auschwitz.So, shortly after that, I think he called and — right, and we said something about, maybe we should really write the book that you have been talking about. The combination, however, has turned into gold, as Brabant unerringly provides accurate research to support Friedman’s callow memories. Tova Friedman and Malcolm Brabant do an unbelievable job of educating us on Tova’s life, before, during and after Auschwitz. She was five years old when she entered the notorious concentration camp in the summer of 1944. Tova’s description and conversations with her mother during her time in Auschwitz are now etched in my mind. Her mother, Reizel, was an indomitable force, who was smart and kept her daughter alive. The horrors of the Holocaust brought to life, from the point of view of a small child who could barely read or recognize numbers. She knew her own, though, the number tattooed on her arm, by a young Jewish woman, in the camp. At the very end of her time in Birkenau, Friedman was reunited with her mother, who was able to save them both from the final death march of prisoners as the Russians advanced towards the camp. After the war, they were reunited with Friedman’s father. Returning to their home town they were met with resentment and unabated antisemitism: children threw stones at Friedman when she went to school; her aunt was murdered by an antisemitic gang in Lodz in 1946. A new book is out today that tells the harrowing story of one young girl's survival through the Holocaust.