But she doesn’t know what has happened to her father and other family members. For the next year Livia and her mother and brother are sent to a number of concentration camps. Her one overwhelming desire is to survive the death camps. She learns to avoid execution and most tortures by not antagonizing the guards or the SS officers. Livia documents the terrible things that she witnesses at Auschwitz. However, her dark-haired aunt is sent to the gas chambers when Mengele rules her unfit for life. Sixteen-year-olds are not sent to the gas chambers, so the evil doctor has given her a clue how to trick his own SS unit. He even gives her a tip on how to avoid being selected: Mengele tells Livia to say she is 16. Mengele because she has pretty blonde hair.

She is selected to live by the infamous Dr. Within a matter of weeks, Livia’s life changes from a 13-year-old going to school, to a terrified teenager facing “selection” at Auschwitz. All the Jews in her hometown are expelled by the German government and eventually are deported to concentration camps. Livia quickly sees her life change from one of familial protection to one of brutal oppression. In March, 1944, the Nazi Government decides that the Jewish population in Hungary needs to be annihilated. The family practices the faith and live virtuous lives. Like many Jewish-Hungarian girls, Livia lives in a close family of prosperous merchants. Livia Bitton-Jackson tells the grueling story of her survival during the Holocaust in her autobiography, “I Have Lived a Thousand Years: Growing Up in the Holocaust.” One country was Hungary and every Jewish person in the land was targeted for extinction. This scapegoating gave targets of ridicule and hatred to a frightened country: now there was someone to blame for all their problems.Īs the Nazis overran nearby countries, they imposed their hatreds on the newly-conquered nations. In the 1930’s, Hitler blamed Germany’s problems on the Jews, Gypsies and other groups.

After that, the goat was driven into the desert and a likely death. One of the first reactions that happens is that some group is “scapegoated”: in ancient Israel, a goat was brought into camp and all the sins of the people were put upon the animal. When times become extremely troubled, simplistic answers are frequently sought. “I Have Lived a Thousand Years: Growing Up in the Holocaust,” by Livia Bitton-Jackson

I have lived a thousand years author