Livia Bitton-Jackson

Who is Livia Bitton-Jackson?

Livia Bitton-Jackson is an author and Holocaust survivor. Although she was born as Elli L. Friedmann in Czechoslovakia,[1] she was 13 years old when she, along with her mother and brother, were taken to Auschwitz, the largest German concentration camp.[2] She and her brother, Bubi, were liberated in 1945, and came to the U.S. on a refugee boat in 1951. She studied at New York University, from which she received a Ph.D. in Hebrew Culture and Jewish History. She also wrote her 1997 memoir I Have Lived a Thousand Years.

Bitton-Jackson lived in Somorja, former Czechoslovakia, when the Germans invaded in 1944. The segregation of Jews began at that time, and they were prohibited from entering theaters, restaurants, and grocery stores. Two months into the German occupation, she was, along with all the Jews in that area, moved to the Dunaszerdahely ghetto that consisted of a synagogue and roughly 20 surrounding houses. Partway through their stay there, all men between the ages of 18 and 45, her father included, were sent to a forced labor camp in Komárom, some fifty miles from the ghetto.[3] Two weeks after her father was taken, Bitton-Jackson, her aunt, mother, and brother were removed from the ghetto and taken, over a journey of four days, to Auschwitz, the largest concentration camp in Poland. She and her mother stayed there for ten days. In June 1944, Bitton-Jackson and her mother were transferred, along with 500 other women, to Camp Plaszow, the most notorious forced labor camp in Poland. There, their work consisted of planierung - leveling off a hilltop in preparation for construction. If they did not work, or work properly, or violated any rule, they would be beaten by their Kapo, or his assistants. After two months stay at Plaszow, they returned to Auschwitz.

In August 1944, Bitton-Jackson and her mother are taken from Auschwitz to a factory in Augsburg. In Augsburg, she was put to work in an assembly line in the factory, where they produced a

...precision instrument that is supposed to control the distance and direction of the bomb ejected by a fighter plane...

They stayed until April 1945. After this herself and her mother were then taken to a subsidiary camp of Dachau, in Germany, where she was reunited with her older brother Bubi who was staying in the mens camp. Her stay here was shortened due to the Allies advance and so the three surviving members of the family were taken by trains further into Germany. On the way the guards deserted and many of the prisoners mistook this to be the liberation, however, the guards returned and fired upon those who had left the train, and ordered the others back onto the carriages. During the rest of the journey, Bitton-Jackson was able to keep her brother with herself and her mother. At one point, she spotted through the cracks in the carriage Red Cross trucks, and the soldiers informed them that the charity would be giving out food. The surviving inmates lined up close to the carriage entrance whereupon they were shot at by the SS. Bubi received a shot to the forehead, but survived. It was only after a week of travelling when the Americans discovered the trains full of dead, injured and starving inmates.

After the liberation, Bitton-Jackson, her mother and brother stayed in Seeshaupt where she helped to nurse her brother and fellow inmates back to health.

After the war she and her brother and mother returned to Šamorín, believing that her father would be waiting for them, only to discover that he was dead. Her brother then moved to New York on a visa from a school scholarship. Bitton-Jackson had the opportunity to go with her brother but chose to stay in Czechoslovakia with her mother. The two stayed in Šamorín until 1951, when they finally got visas to go to America.[4]

They traveled to America on a refugee boat, and Ms. Jackson, as she was then an adult, continued her education. She eventually enrolled in New York University, and got a degree there. Dr...