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Marina Roio

Ms. Figueroa

World Literature – Block D

March 18, 2016

The Holocaust

I Have Lived A Thousand Years

By: Livia Bitton-Jackson

The story begins with the main character Elli talking about how she wants to go to school
in Budapest like her brother Bubi. She talks about how she lived in a farming town near the
beautiful Danube River. Elli has always yearned to feel loved by her mother, to know that her
mother loved her and thought she was beautiful. Elli’s mother says too much cuddling and
affection will make her weak and unable to face life’s challenges on her own.
Elli says some nights the Hungarian police come to her door and would worry her. One
night her brother returned from Budapest saying that Germany had invaded Budapest. Hearing
no news of this attack, his father sends him back. The following day, the news comes out and the
terror all begins. Bubi returns home safe to his family.
Immediately after, Elli’s school closes down. She is so sad, the place she once loved is -
9-*gone for now. Elli doesn’t know if she will ever return. The non-Jewish boys from her school
make fun of her by calling her Jew Girl, Jew Girl. Elli runs away and cries about wanting her
old, normal life back.
The Jews are now in the hands of the SS. The liquidation of Somorja, Elli’s town has
begun. All Jews are forced to register at the town hall and bring all of the possessions that they
have. Elli’s father shows the family where he has hid their most prized possessions 25cm
underground. Elli tells her family she doesn’t want to be the only one to survive and the only one
who has to remember.
It has gotten to the point where Jews are forced into wearing a yellow star on all clothing.
They also have to paint one on their house. Elli likes a boy named Jancsi Novak. He asks to meet
her at the library every Thursday, as soon as he sees the star on her sadness overtakes him. Elli
never saw him again since Jews couldn’t associate with Christians.
The next few days all Jews, including Elli’s family are forced to move to the ghettos. The
ghetto she lives in is very crowded but all of the families bond, get along, and share. The people
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in the ghettos begin to hear rumors of concentration camps and liquidation. One of Elli’s close,
non-Jewish friends finds her. Her name is Marta, when she comes she is with her mother.
Only a day later, news is spread that all men ages 18-45 are being sent to a labor camp in
Komarom. Elli cannot yet bring herself to tell her father how much she loved him and all the
things about him. She wanted her mother to wake her up before he leaves so she can say bye.
Nobody wakes her up, and runs outside to only see the outline of her father in the distance
amongst other men. She is so upset that she can’t say bye.
The military police make all of the people turn in all papers. The police tell them they
will get everything back but everything is burned once all is turned in.
All Jews in the ghetto are being taken on a long journey. They were allowed to take as
much personal possessions they could carry on their back. Elli’s Aunt Serena is so distraught and
refuses to let the Germans keep her things so she destroys it all.
The place that they are traveling to now is even more crowded than the ghetto. A week
later they begin traveling again. They arrive at their destination 4 days later. Elli sees the large
and frightening sign that reads Auschwitz. Upon their arrival they are treated terribly. The officer
separates Elli and her mother from her Aunt Serena. They never saw her aunt again.
At the camp, all of their possessions are taken, they are forced to remove their clothes,
get their hair shaved off and given gray sack like dresses and uncomfortable shoes. They all
dread the everyday roll call called the Zählappell. In the camp Elli and her mother are reunited
with her other Aunt Celia and her cousins Hindi and Suri. The first night that Elli and her mother
are in the camp a girl in their bunker is shot for calling out to her mother.
Elli sees her reflection and doesn’t recognize herself. She is extremely sunburnt and
covered in blisters. Elli wonders if Bubi looks the same and if he is ok.
Not to shortly after Elli and her mother are transferred to the Plaszow Concentration.
Rumors spread all over that Hitler is dead. All the people at Plaszow are loaded in crammed
trains for two days until they reach Auschwitz again. They get tattoos of their ID number when
they get back into Auschwitz.
The new bunkers at Auschwitz are made of wood. One day Elli ad her mom are sitting on
a bottom bunk when a bunk from above collapses on them. Elli manages to get out with minor
injuries, but Elli’s mom is paralyzed and in bad condition.
Elli and her mom are transferred to a place called Augsburg where they are treated like normal
people. There, Elli’s mom is healing well. Elli gets in trouble and is forced to stand till midnight;
her mother saves her lunch and supper ration for her. Elli refused to eat it. Later on in the story
they find out that Elli’s father had died that night. Elli recalls a dream about a gold bird that
turned her father to stone and woke up and knew he was dead. Elli and her mother leave
Augsburg to go to a new camp called Muhldorf. There they are reunited with Bubi who is at the
neighboring men’s camp. They don’t recognize Bubi at first; he looks like a skeleton covered in
bruises.
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The gates separating the camps are opened and no guards are to be found. Elli and Bubi
find each other and embrace. Elli thinks they are free but Bubi knows they aren’t. Elli and Bubi
talk about returning home, Elli says she can’t wait to see everyone, Bubi tells her the 3 of them
and maybe their dad are the only ones who have survived.
Dachau and all of the sub-camps are cleared out, they travel four days in boxcars. They
stop at a cornfield where they think they are free, but they aren’t. Elli and her mom find Bubi
before rapid gunfire breaks out. They get in a boxcar and the train speeds away leaving many
injured. The Nazis set up a trap making the people think that the German Red Cross is handing
out warm soup, so all people get out of the trains. Again gunfire breaks out and the train speeds
away again. Many people are killed or hurt. Bubi is shot in the head but is ok. Elli and her
mother are untouched. Enemy planes attack and once they leave all dead people are taken out of
the boxcars.
A week after traveling again, the doors to the boxcar is opened by the Americans!
German people are seeing these people at the station and are all apologizing for not knowing
what was going on and not helping them. Elli is mistaken for a 67 year old when she is only 14.
The Americans drop of the people from Elli’s town and neighboring towns. Elli, her
mother and Bubi are 36 of the 500 people in their village who survived. They return home in
hopes of finding their father, but he wasn’t there. Bubi plans only going to find him, but just
before departing he finds out he died 2 weeks before liberation. Elli, Bubi and her mother
promise not to separate ever again. They plan to go to America but Elli has second thoughts. She
wants to stay in Palestine. She thinks that in America they will always be foreigners and never
feel at home. However, since they promised to never separate, they go to America together.
They arrive in America in New York and see the Statue of Liberty. All together people
start singing their anthems in their own languages.
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Formal Review
I especially liked this book because I am very passionate about the Holocaust. I highly
recommend this book to anybody interested in the Holocaust or looking for an interesting book
to read. This real account of the holocaust shows the importance of family, faith and hope. It
shows the perseverance of the survivors and how badly they yearned to survive. It teaches me
that I need to keep my faith no matter what kind of situation I am in. This chilling story is a raw
account of the events of the Holocaust and what its like to be a prisoner in one of the camps. It
shows the punishments the people had to go through. However this story also shows how the
hope and faith the people during the Holocaust had saved them. If they would’ve stopped
believing that they could continue on, a lot more people would’ve died. It shows that hope and
faith should always be a part of your life because it can take you far. Some of the reasons why I
enjoyed this book was because the entire storyline in the camps showed the close relationship
between Elli and her mother and how they only got closer over the time together. I enjoyed
reading about her and her mother because, like Elli, I have a very close relationship with my
mother. I also enjoyed reading the parts where Elli was reunited with her family, it showed that
together they made a whole and were there to support each other. I think I liked that part of the
book because I too am very close with my family and would do anything for them. It was
heartbreaking to read about the woman who mistaken Elli, a fourteen year old young girl, for a
67 year old elderly woman. By reading that, I got a vision in my head of what that must have
looked like, and how the time Elli was in the Holocaust aged her “a thousand years”. Words
couldn’t describe my happiness for Elli, her mother and brother to survive. My favorite part had
to have been when they were liberated together and lived. Their yearning to be together is what
kept them alive and going through the grueling process. The sacrifices and risks they made for
each other is what kept them from dying. Knowing that somebody could go through so much,
live through it and be able to talk about it now to educate other is a beautiful thing. This book
also shows how naïve and unaware the people all over the world were to what was going on. I
most definitely enjoyed this book and would read it again.
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Questions
1. What is it?
The Holocaust was a genocide that took place in Germany from 1941-1945 (“The
Holocaust” par 1). The Holocaust’s main purpose was the killing and persecution of Jews. About
eleven million people were killed, six million of them were Jews (“The Holocaust” par 1). This
genocide was led by Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany (“The Holocaust” par 1). Jews were taken
to concentration where they were abused, starved, killed, burned, gassed and forced to do hard
labor. People in other parts of the world were oblivious to everything going on in these camps,
some camps were more severe than others. The Holocaust ended in 1945 when the Americans
liberated the Jews once Germany had surrendered in the war (Bitton-Jackson 194-199).
2. What is it known for?
The Holocaust is a genocide known for the persecution and mass murdering of many
Jews. However there are many more things the Holocaust was known for. Although at the time
of the Holocaust people were naïve to know what was happening, bad things were going on. The
Holocaust was known for shaving people’s heads and all body hair (Bitton-Jackson 76-77),
making them wear striped garments, tattooing inmates (Wood 109), abusing and starving people.
They were known for transporting all Jews to ghettos before being separated and shipped off to
camps. Camps were also known for mass murdering in the camps. They would shoot people, kill
them in gas chambers, and burn them alive. The Holocaust was known for its propaganda that
had people all over the world getting wrong impressions of what was really going on (“Nazi
Propaganda” par 1).

3. What is its history?

The history of the Holocaust comes from a mix of many things. The main cause of the
Holocaust was Anti-Semitism, the hatred of Jews. Hitler used anti-Semitism to make the Jews
out to be scapegoats. The hatred of Jews was still vivid even before Hitler came to
power(“Before the Holocaust: Historical Anti-Semitism and Hitler’s Rise to Power” par 1) It
also went all of the way back to WWI leading up to WWII. Hitler coming to power in 1933, also
influenced the start of the Holocaust (“Adolf Hitler” par 1). The official start of the Holocaust
was known as the Final Solution. The Final Solution was the system in which the holocaust
started. “The Final Solution was implemented in stages. After the Nazi party rise to power, state-
enforced racism resulted in anti-Jewish legislation, boycotts, "Aryanization," and finally the
"Night of Broken Glass" pogrom, all of which aimed to remove the Jews from German society”
(“The Final Solution” par 1). Then Jews were sent to ghettos or killed by being shot or in gas
vans before even reaching camps. Once they were in ghettos for a short time, they were put into
concentration or extermination camps. Many people were killed in camps. Besides the Jews,
homosexuals, blacks, Orientals, communists and disabled were put in camps and ghettos as well
(Wood 45).
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4. What culture is associated with it?

The culture associated with the Holocaust is mainly the Jews. Although other cultures
and races were killed in the Holocaust, Jews made up the majority and were the ones the
Holocaust aimed at exterminating. Going back to the history of the Holocaust we know that
Anti-Semitism had a major impact on the Holocaust. The Jews were treated the worst from the
deportation to the ghettos, liquidation of the ghettos, deportation to the camps, and killings
(Wood 71). Once the Holocaust put a main focus on the Jews, non-Jews turned on them and saw
them as the enemy. Riots and mass murders of Jews broke out everywhere. Jews were even
persecuted by their non-Jewish friends, “I heard you were a bloody pig, A Jewish pig. Don’t
come here again! (Hilton 51). The Jews had many practices and traditions, and even as they went
through everything and camps, they continued with their practices. Being Jewish they celebrated
Passover, practiced and studied the Torah, went to the synagogue and kept the Sabbath (Jewish
Holidays par 6). Before the Holocaust, they all attended synagogue regularly. They also studied
the Talmud at that time (Bitton-Jackson 54). Even when they were in the camps, people tried to
keep their traditions; they were constantly asking God for protection and had faith in him always.
In the book it even said, “Much later we find out that was the night daddy died-on the fifth day
of Passover (Bitton-Jackson 162).
5. What culture is associated with it?
One of the main groups associated with the Holocaust were the victims and suspects of
Medical Experimentation. There were a few well-known doctors who performed these
experiments however some Jews were doctors as well who were forced into it. A few of the
doctors included Josef Mengele, Kurt Heissmeyer, Heinrich Himmler, Herta Oberheuser and
Carl Claudberg (“The Nazi Doctors” par 1-3). Each of the doctors specialized in other forms of
experimentation. One of the main groups experimented on were twins, roughly 3,000 twins were
experimented on, only 200 survived (“Nazi Human Experimentation” par 6). Experiments were
excruciatingly painful, unclean, unnecessary and disgusting. Experiments purposes were
separated into three groups; research for the war, developing and testing pharmaceuticals and
medicines, and to advance the Aryan race (Nazi Medical Experimentation par 1, 2, 3).

6. What are the practices/traditions of the group associated with it?

All of the doctors specialized in a different kind of Medical Experimentation field. To
start off, Doctor Josef Mengele, who was known as the “Angel of Death” specialized in the
torture and experimentation on twins (“Auschwitz gets a New Doctor: The Angel of Death”). He
would do things like inject eyes with dyes to change twins’ eye color (Nazi Human
Experimentation par 6). He would also do extensive examinations on twins comparing every
difference and similarity. With twins, once he was done with them, he would inject their hearts
with chloroform and they would die immediately (Nazi Human Experimentation par 6). He
would experiment on women by tying their legs together during childbirth (Ms. Figueroa).
Another doctor, Herta Oberheuser was another among the most gruesome and merciless doctors.
She specialized in the killing of healthy children. She did things like inflict wounds and make
them warlike by rubbing fragments of glass, pieces of wood, dirt, rust and sawdust into the cuts.
She also preformed bone, muscle and nerve transplants. She injected children with chemicals
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like oil and evipan to kill them. Once they were dead she would remove limbs and organs (Herta
Oberheuser par 2). Any other experiments were performed as well. The most common ones in
the camps were separated into 3 sections: research for the war, developing and testing
pharmaceuticals, and advances for the Aryan race (Nazi Medical Experimentation par 1, 2, 3).
Some of the experiments included experimentation on twins, bone, muscle and nerve transplants,
freezing and hypothermia experiments, sterilization experiments, immunization experiments and
high altitude experiments (Nazi Human Experiments par 6-18). All experiments were gruesome
and extremely painful. Millions of people were victims of experimentation, and only few
survived.
7. Is it associated with a religion, philosophy, belief system or other devotion?
The Holocaust was mainly centered around the Jews. The Holocaust was also associated
with people of non-Aryan races, homosexuals, and communists. The Holocaust was focused on
the Jews because at the time Anti-Semitism was at a high (Wood 16). The Jews were persecuted
the most during the Holocaust both others were also persecuted. Black people were also
associated, “Propaganda Minister Goebbles called successes by black people were a “disgrace”
(Wood 52).” The Polish were also associated, in some cases Polish babies looked “German” and
were kidnapped and given to German families (Wood 52). Other people associated were
Romanies, Homosexuals, Jehovah’s Witness’ and Disabled People (Wood 53). Racism and Anti-
Semitism played a major role in the Holocaust. The people who “chaired” and supported the
Holocaust were all racist towards Jews and judged unfairly.
8. What impact has it had on the world?
The Holocaust has made a major impact on the world today and the world at the time og
the liberation. At the time right after the liberation, all of the people who were oblivious to what
was going on were brought into the camps to see what was actually going on (Wood 145).
People were in complete shock and disbelief to what was going on the entire time. The
Americans mainly brought in the Germans so they couldn’t deny what the Nazis were doing
(Wood 151). They would bring people on concentration camp “tours” to see everything for
themselves (Wood 151). Today camps all over Europe are used as museums for people to come
and see. There are also museums in the US, 2 of them being the Museum of Tolerance and The
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Through the Holocaust, we have learned to be open
to all races, ethnicities, and religions. We have also learned stories of the time from people who
survived that we would never have known from solely looking and inspecting the camps.
9. How would you feel if you were involved? Why?
Being a person very interested in the Holocaust, and have read many books about the
Holocaust I’m not sure I would have survived. Being very tightly knit with my family, the
thought of being separated from my family makes my stomach turn. Reading my book and
hearing the story of Elli’s journey with her mother through the camps makes me sad. The times
Elli almost loses her mother, I can’t even imagine being in a situation like that. If I were to be a
part of the Holocaust, being a survivor would be amazing especially at my age. Being a nurturing
person and having a passion for helping people, I feel like if I were to die it would be because I
was helping someone.
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MLA Work Cited

“Adolf Hitler.” Wikipedia. March 19, 2016. Web.

March 19, 2016. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Hitler

“Auschwitz gets a New Doctor: The Angel of Death.” The History Channel. 2010. Web.
March 20, 2016. http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/auschwitz-gets-a-new-
doctor-the-angel-of-death

“Before the Holocaust: Historical Anti-Semitism and Hitler’s Rise to Power.” History Channel.
2009. Web.
March 13, 2016. http://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/the-holocaust

Bitton-Jackson, Livia. I Have Lived A Thousand Years. Simon Pulse, 1999. Print

“The Final Solution.”USHMM. Web.

March 15, 2016. https://www.ushmm.org/outreach/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007704

“Herta Oberheuser.” Wikipedia. February 4, 2016. Web.

March 20, 2016. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herta_Oberheuser

Hilton, Leonie. Holocaust the Events and their Impact on Real People: Voices Jews under the
Nazis.
DK Children, 2015. Print

“The Holocaust.” Wikipedia. March 12,2016. Web.

March 13, 2016. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Holocaust

“Jewish Holidays.”Shiva. 2016. Web.

March 13, 2016. http://www.shiva.com/learning-center/commemorate/jewish-holidays/

“The Nazi Doctors”. DK.Web.

March 20, 2016. http://www.auschwitz.dk/doctors.htm

“Nazi Human Experimentation.” Wikipedia. March 19, 2016. Web.

March 20, 2016. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_human_experimentation

“Nazi Medical Experiments.” USHMM. January 29, 2016. Web.

March 20, 2016. https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005168

“Nazi Propaganda.” Wikipedia. March 3, 2016. Web.

March 13, 2016. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_propaganda

Wood, Angela Gluck. Holocaust the Events and their Impact on Real People. DK Children,
2015. Print