Cover of I Have Lived a Thousand Years

I Have Lived a Thousand Years

Elli Friedmann seriesNext:My Bridges of Hope(1999) →

What is death all about?

What is life all about?

So wonders thirteen-year-old- Elli Friedmann, just one of the many innocent Holocaust victims, as she fights for her life in a concentration camp. It wasn't long ago that Elli led a normal life; a life rich and full that included family, friends, school, and thoughts about boys. A life in which Elli could lie and daydream for hours that she was a beautiful and elegant celebrated poet.

Read more

But these adolescent daydreams quickly darken in March 1944, when the Nazis invade Hungary. First Elli can no longer attend school, have possessions, or talk to her neighbors. Then she and her family are forced to leave their house behind to move into a crowded ghetto, where privacy becomes a luxury of the past and food becomes a scarcity. Her strong will and faith allow Elli to manage and adjust somehow, but what Elli doesn't know is that this is only the beginning and the worst is yet to come....

A remarkable memoir. I Have Lived a Thousand Years is a story of cruelty and suffering, but at the same time a story of hope, faith, perseverance and love.

Audience
young adultchildrensmiddle gradeadult
Length
medium · 234 pages

Click a tag to see books like this one that share it. Point at it (on a phone, tap it) for less of it instead.

Read it? Sign in to help tag it.

Liked I Have Lived a Thousand Years? Here’s where I’d start.

These suit anyone who liked I Have Lived a Thousand Years. Sign in and mark a few books for picks shaped around your own taste.

  1. In My Hands: Memories of a Holocaust Rescuer Shares Holocaust, nonfiction, memoir
  2. Rena's Promise: A Story of Sisters in Auschwitz Shares Holocaust, nonfiction, memoir
  3. The Cage Shares Holocaust, nonfiction, memoir
  4. Four Perfect Pebbles: A Holocaust Story Shares Holocaust, nonfiction, memoir

“People who read I Have Lived a Thousand Years tend to reach for these next.”

  1. No Pretty Pictures: A Child of War
  2. Eyewitness Auschwitz: Three Years in the Gas Chambers
  3. Scheisshaus Luck: Surviving the Unspeakable in Auschwitz and Dora
  4. Thanks to My Mother

“If you want more of the same (history about jewish), start with these.”

  1. Five Chimneys: A Woman Survivor's True Story of Auschwitz
  2. All But My Life: A Memoir
  3. Clara's War
  4. The Hidden Children: The Secret Survivors of the Holocaust

“If it was the Holocaust that hooked you, try one of these.”

  1. I Will Plant You a Lilac Tree: A Memoir of a Schindler's List Survivor
  2. Until We Meet Again: A True Story of Love and Survival in the Holocaust
  3. The Girl in the Green Sweater: A Life in Holocaust's Shadow
  4. The Lost Childhood: A World War II Memoir

“These start from a similar idea, even if they go somewhere else with it.”

  1. Outcry - Holocaust memoirs
  2. Diary of Dawid Sierakowiak: Five Notebooks from the Lodz Ghetto
  3. The Boy on the Wooden Box
  4. Kanada