The daughter of Auschwitz The girl who lived to tell her story

This Holocaust memoir is especially engaging and should resonate with middle-grade readers. It's 1950, and 12-year-old Tola and her parents are refugees living in Queens. When a classmate, Lilly, invites Tola over for Thanksgiving, Tola is nervous but agrees. When she arrives, Lilly is welcoming but wonders why Tola isn't spending the day with her own relatives. Tola promises to explain everything, and the rest of the book is a factual account of everything Tola experienced as a Jewish girl living in Poland: from Kristallnacht, to ghetto imprisonment, to transport and internment at Auschwitz, to liberation and resettlement. Written in first person, Tola's account is searing, straightforward, and compelling. She relates unimaginable scenes through the eyes of a survivor, sharing age-appropriate interpretations of what she was seeing and feeling, resulting in fresh perspectives. Tola, now Tova Friedman, is a grandmother and antisemitism activist. A concluding "Author Q & A" answers common questions raised on Friedman's TikTok account, like "Can you ever forgive?" and "Do you think the Holocaust could happen again?" This crucial testimony deserves a wide audience.

Based on her adult autobiography, Friedman recounts her childhood during the Holocaust, detailing her experiences in the Tomaszow Mazowiecki ghetto, the Starachowice labor camp, and the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp. The book shares her heartbreaking experiences of loss, starvation, and cruelty, while highlighting her strength and resilience. The narrative's historical importance and depth make this an indispensable tool for understanding this dark chapter in history. Suitable for upper middle-grade and older readers. (c) Copyright 2025. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.