My Bridges of Hope: Searching for Life and Love After Auschwitz

185 Pages·1999·1.53 MB·English

by  Bitton-Jackson

A L B -J :
LSO BY IVIA ITTON ACKSON

Dedicated to the State of Israel on the occasion of its Jubilee year and to the
men and women—many in their teens—who lost their lives so that Israel may
live.
First Simon Pulse edition March 2002
Text copyright © 1999 by Livia Bitton-Jackson
Simon Pulse
An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division
1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, New York 10020
www.SimonandSchuster.com
All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any
form.
Also available in a Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers hardcover
edition
Book design by Lisa Vega
The text of this book is set in 12-point Garamond Number 3.
Manufactured in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Jackson, Livia Bitton.
My bridges of hope : searching for life and love after Auschwitz / by Livia
Bitton-Jackson.
p. cm.
Sequel to: I have lived a thousand years.
Summary: In 1945, after surviving a harrowing year in Auschwitz, fourteen-
year-old Elli returns, along with her mother and brother, to the family home,
now part of Slovakia, where they try to find a way to rebuild their shattered
lives.
ISBN-10: 0-689-82026-7 (hc.)
1. Jackson, Livia-Bitton—Childhood and youth—Juvenile literature.
2. Holocaust survivors—Slovakia—Biography—Juvenile literature.
3. Jewish teenagers—Slovakia—Biography—Juvenile literature.
[1. Jackson, Livia Bitton—Childhood and youth. 2. Holocaust
survivors. 3. Jews—Slovakia. 4. Women—Biography.] I. Title.
DS135.S55J33 1999 940.53′18′092—dc21 [B] 98-8046 CIP AC
ISBN-13: 978-0-689-84898-8 (Pulse pbk.)
ISBN-10: 0-689-84898-6 (Pulse pbk.)
ISBN-13: 978-1-4391-1590-9 (eBook)
Acknowledgments
Without the dynamic encouragement of my agent, Toni Mendez, and the
brilliant literary guidance of Jeanette Smith, this book would not have happened.
Their friendship and enthusiasm served as vital ingredients in the magic of
creation.
In addition to her superb editorial skills, which provided inspiration for
excellence, my editor, Stephanie Owens Lurie, her assistant, Meredith Gillespie,
and the rest of their team combined professionalism and humanity to create a
remarkable circle of support.
I consider myself singularly fortunate in having worked in an atmosphere that
made the writing of this book a labor of love.
Contents
FOREWORD
Chapter 1: Homecoming
Chapter 2: Back in School
Chapter 3: The “Tattersall”
Chapter 4: Daddy’s Coat
Chapter 5: Miki
Chapter 6: A Letter from America
Chapter 7: Destination America
Chapter 8: The Barishna
Chapter 9: “I Cannot Bear the Sun!”
Chapter 10: My First Job
Chapter 11: I Am Going on Vacation
Chapter 12: A Long Day
Chapter 13: The Certificate
Chapter 14: I Will Make It After All
Chapter 15: “Until Mommy and Daddy Return”
Chapter 16: Preparing for the Climbing Expedition
Chapter 17: A Rude Awakening
Chapter 18: Why Won’t They Believe Me?
Chapter 19: Days Filled to the Brim
Chapter 20: A Painful Parting
Chapter 21: A Lost Child
Chapter 22: Dancing in the Square
Chapter 23: Gina’s Secret
Chapter 24: Briha
Chapter 25: The Haganah Camp
Chapter 26: “It Has Come to Our Attention ...”
Chapter 27: Vilo
Chapter 28: Our Last Chance
Chapter 29: The Transport Is in Jeopardy
Chapter 30: The “Screening”
Chapter 31: At the Border
Chapter 32: Freedom at Last
Chapter 33: Spring in Vienna
Chapter 34: Andy
Chapter 35: My Visits to the Hospital
Chapter 36: Goodbye, Vienna
Chapter 37: Back in Germany
Chapter 38: Camp Feldafing
Chapter 39: Camp Geretsried
Chapter 40: “So It Has Come to Pass ...”
EPILOGUE
APPENDIX A
APPENDIX B
GLOSSARY OF TERMS
Foreword
When I was thirteen, German soldiers bearing Nazi flags marched into
Budapest, the capital of Hungary, and my life changed forever. Within days my
family—my mother, my father, my brother, my aunt, and myself—were taken
away from our home. We were delivered to another town where, along with
thousands of other Jews, we were crowded into the synagogue compound
designated as a “ghetto,” or a transit camp, to await “deportation.”
From there, a three-day ride in a dark, cramped cattle car with little air and no
water was the prelude to our descent into the nightmare of Auschwitz, a
concentration camp where close to four million people were mass murdered and
a few thousand were kept alive to perform slave labor. My father was no longer
with us. A few days before our incarceration in the train he was taken away
abruptly, without a last goodbye, to a different forced labor camp.
Upon our arrival on the Auschwitz platform, my seventeen-year-old brother
was shoved brutally into a line of men. Then a frenetic march of panicky women
and crying children began. Driven by barking, ferocious bloodhounds and an
ongoing hail of blows, the march ended at the gate of the camp. Here a man
named Dr. Josef Mengele decided whether people would live or die. With stick
in hand, Dr. Mengele selected Aunt Serena for the gas chamber together with the
infirm, the elderly, and mothers with their children.
Because I was tall for my age and my blond braids made me look Aryan, Dr.
Mengele, the “Angel of Death,” pulled me and Mommy out of the line leading to
the gas chamber. Instead of death in the crematorium, Mommy and I were
condemned to life in the inferno.
Through a series of miraculous twists of fate, Mommy and I survived until the
end of the war, a year later. On April 30, 1945, American soldiers liberated us
from a train in which thirty thousand dying inmates from a number of camps
were being shipped to an unknown destination.
By another one of those incredible twists of fate, my brother, Bubi, was put on
the same train, and the three of us savored the bitter taste of freedom together.
Together we confronted the reality of life after liberation—the full realization of
our tragic losses.
Then we began the journey home.
Little did I know then what agonies and adventures awaited me, and that our
journey to reach a safe haven would take six harrowing years. This book
describes those years, the remainder of my teens, when we young survivors