This is the memoir of Elli Friedmann who was thirteen years old in March 1944 when the Nazis invaded Hungary. It describes, in intimate and excrutiating detail, how her world was shattered by their arrival. She tells what it was like to be suddenly forbidden to attend school, talk to neighbours, to forceably leave home and move to a ghetto, lose all privacy and almost starve. But worse was to come in Auschwitz concentration camp. She recounts what it was like to exist there as one of the few teenage inmates and the tiny but miraculous twists of fate that helped her survive against the odds. Although her story is heartbreaking, Elli's enduring hope, perseverance and strength throughout her ordeal make it an inspiring one. Readers will be moved by the intensity of Elli's spirit and her ability to overcome the nightmare that was her daily reality.

Livia Bitton-Jackson, born Elli L. Friedmann in Czechoslovakia, was thirteen when she, her mother, and her brother were taken to Auschwitz. They were liberated in 1945 and came to the United States on a refugee boat in 1951. She received a PhD in Hebrew culture and Jewish history from New York University. Dr. Bitton-Jackson has been a professor of history at City University of New York for thirty-seven years. Her previous books include Elli: Coming of Age in the Holocaust, which received the Christopher Award, the Eleanor Roosevelt Humanitarian Award, and the Jewish Heritage Award. Dr. Bitton-Jackson lives in Israel with her husband, children, and grandchildren.