THE DAUGHTER OF AUSCHWITZ

The true story of a young girl growing up amid the Holocaust, based on an adult memoir and retold for a middle-grade audience.

The author—referred to here as Tola (she explains that she later changed her name)—notes that her earliest memories are from the Tomaszów Mazowiecki ghetto, where she lived with her parents until she was nearly 5. She and her parents endured through a combination of sheer luck and being considered useful by the Nazis. Eventually, Tola and her mother were sent to Auschwitz, while her father was sent to Dachau. Tola again survived against all odds; in a particularly harrowing scene, she and other children were sent to the gas chamber before inexplicably being told to return to the barracks. While Friedman doesn’t shy away from the countless atrocities she witnessed, her writing is sensitively pitched to her young audience, though at times the pacing is inconsistent. Among the most moving scenes are Tola’s moments as a “carefree child in the midst of horror”: baking matzah and making a toy out of a dirty string. The book concludes with an epilogue discussing the recent rise of antisemitism around the world and backmatter in which Friedman responds to some of the most common questions she’s been asked about her experiences.

A powerful adaptation, made accessible for young readers.