Encore: Author Talk, "The Daughter of Auschwitz" with Tova Friedman

Originally recorded on February 8, 2023. Tova Friedman was one of the youngest people to emerge from  Auschwitz. After surviving the liquidation of the Jewish ghetto in  Central Poland where she lived as a toddler, Tova was four when she and  her parents were sent to a Nazi labour camp, and almost six when she and  her mother were forced into a packed cattle truck and sent to Auschwitz  II, also known as the Birkenau extermination camp, while her father was  transported to Dachau. During six months of incarceration in Birkenau, Tova witnessed  atrocities that she could never forget, and experienced numerous escapes  from death. She is one of a handful of Jews to have entered a gas  chamber and lived to tell the tale. As Nazi killing squads roamed Birkenau before abandoning the camp in  January 1945, Tova and her mother hid among corpses. After being  liberated by the Russians they made their way back to their hometown in  Poland. Eventually Tova's father tracked them down and the family was  reunited. In The Daughter of Auschwitz, Tova  immortalizes what she saw, to keep the story of the Holocaust alive, at a  time when it's in danger of fading from memory. She has used those  memories that have shaped her life to honour the victims. Written with  award-winning former war reporter Malcolm Brabant, this is an extremely  important book. Brabant's meticulous research has helped Tova recall her  experiences in searing detail. Together they have painstakingly  recreated Tova's extraordinary story about the world's worst ever crime. Co-sponsored by East Brunswick Hadassah.