I Have Lived a Thousand Years

Growing Up in the Holocaust

By: Livia Bitton-Jackson

Narrated by: Christine Williams

Length: 6 hrs and 37 mins

Publisher's summary

Imagine being a 13-year-old girl in love with boys, school, family - life itself. Then suddenly, in a matter of hours, your life is shattered by the arrival of a foreign army. You can no longer attend school, have possessions, talk to your neighbors. One day your family has to leave your house behind and move into a crowded ghetto, where you lose all privacy and there isn’t enough food to eat. Still you manage, somehow, to adjust. But there is much, much worse to come...

This is the memoir of Elli Friedmann, who was 13 years old in March 1944, when the Nazis invaded Hungary. It describes her descent into the hell of Auschwitz, a concentration camp where, because of her golden braids, she was selected for work instead of extermination. In intimate, excruciating details she recounts what it was like to be one of the few teenage camp inmates, and the tiny but miraculous twists of fate that helped her survive against all odds. I Have Lived a Thousand Years is a searing story of cruelty and suffering, but at the same time it is a story of hope, faith, perseverance, and love. It will make you see the world in a new way - and it will make you want to change what you see.

©1997 Livia Jackson (P)2013 AudioGO

A Chilling Account of a Jewish Girl

I know it happened but I still find it hard to believe of what people will do to other people, heartbreaking story, one of many thousands the same.
I see others didn't like the narrator but I thought Christine was just fine, easy to listen to. I'd recommend this book.

The Horrors of living under Nazi Fascism

This audible book should be mandatory listening in all our schools. Or read the astonishing book with its devastation and miraculous triumph in the Will to Live dramatized in “I Have Lived a Thousand Years”. A companion book “In Order to Live” by Yeonmi Park should also be required reading and listening to understand the struggles just to survive under a North Korean totalitarian dictatorship. We are in the beginning and rudimentary stages of such oppression and censorship in the USA today unless it is reversed. If our young students aren’t educated in the history of Fascism, Communism, and Maoism we too shall suffer its fruition and the horrors of its hegemony. Freedom in a learned ignorance once lost, once given up, is extremely difficult to regain.

A moving first-person narrative

A moving first-person narrative that enhanced my understanding of modern Jewish angst. Well worth the listening time.

Weird voicing choice

the performer sounds like an anime dub and also is wildly happy the entire time, this would be fine but this is a book about the holicost so it was kinda startling and weird to listen to. great book though, really important story

Struck by the reality.

This books opens your eyes to some of the atrocities committed during ww2. I don’t think it would be appropriate to talk about this book the same way you’d talk about a fictional story. There is no room for personal interpretation, the store just is what it is. It is a horrid retelling of a young girl surviving the horrors of war.

First person read

It was interesting to listen to this first person story. It was painful at times to listen to their sad journey, but also told well.

Heartbreaking story

Was a very good and very sad story, but the narrator was a little annoying

Such an experience!

This book put me right there with Ellie. I cried.... it is a reminder of the loss that was had all those years ago.

Gripping and Emotional

It had me wanting more. This is one out of thousands or even millions who survived the living hell called a consentration camp. We must never forget. I will be looking for more to listen to.
Thank you for your story. it was very heart felt and emotional. May God grant you peace every day of your life.

Narrator too dramatic!

The breathless smiling voice of the narrator became just too much far too often. I have of late binged on the Audible’s Holocaust accounts. I have read all of the major titles and a very large bundle of the lesser known titles. Yes, this is the most draining, despicable, dramatic topic out there; but if you want to listen to a narrator push the envelope, this is the audiobook to choose. Too much, too much, too damn much syrupy breathlessness!