Freedom is within their grasp, yet there is still danger and fear on the prowl.
They are trying to survive until they can be liberated. Elli and her brother and mother are all together. The title of the book comes from the liberation scene. The fact that hope and strength and courage and dignity can survive in the midst of such horror is amazing to me. Elli's determination to survive, to ensure her mother's survival is so courageous, so incredible. They're real they matter their stories, their lives count. The people aren't just numbers, aren't just statistics, aren't just nameless, faceless strangers. The way they are written, so straight-forward, so concise, instantly put me in her shoes. Her descriptions are so powerful, so real. Oh God, I don't want to live if you don't! I don't want to know about anything! I don't want to know!" "I don't want to know the spot! I don't want to be the one to survive! I don't want to survive alone! Alone, I don't want to live. The unspoken words being that she may be the only one to survive.
I weep for my life, which will never be the same." A bit further on we read her description of what it was like to be shown where the family's treasure was buried. For the school that will never be my school again. I weep for my classroom, which is no longer my classroom. Here is her description of when the Nazis came and her school was closed, "I weep and weep. When our story opens she is around the age of 13. The imagery is strong there is power in her words. The book concludes with Elli and her remaining family members arriving in America in 1951. The book covers the years 1944-1945, although it hints at what came before and what comes after. Born in Czechoslovakia, Elli along with her family were taken to Auschwitz when the ghettos were liquidated in 1944. I Have Lived A Thousand Years: Growing Up in the Holocaust is the memoir of Elli L.
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