By
– August 20, 2012
Those who have read Bitton-Jackson’s previous books will especially welcome this conclusion to her story. In Elli: Coming of Age in the Holocaust and its YA version: I Have Lived a Thousand Years, we read about her childhood and pre-teen years in Czechoslovakia, her incarceration with her mother in Auschwitz and in several death camps, where they suffered unspeakable cruelties but probably survived through their mutual support. Her story continued in My Bridges of Hope, which is about the postwar period in Europe and Israel, and her work in Bricha, the organization that aided illegal emigration of refugees to British-controlled Palestine. Elli evidently knew English well before coming to America since she was able to serve as an interpreter for the captain of the ship that brought them to America, where she tells the reader she was invaluable to the ship’s captain. Unlike some other émigrés to the United States, Elli and her mother were warmly welcomed by her father’s brother and his family. Of course, all beginnings are difficult and Elli is surprised that her relatives do not live in the flashy section of the New York pictured in her mind, while her mother’s relatives live in Brooklyn. But beyond the normal acclimation period and finding a suitable job commensurate with her intelligence, and at least three romances, one on the ship, the most disturbing aspect of America to Elli is the unwillingness of Americans to hear about what she and her mother and the other Jews of Europe went through or to be reminded of lost relatives, even her father-her uncle’s brother. In one telling passage, Bitton-Jackson writes: “I am overcome by a sense of the enormity of my survival‑a validation. Ever since that fateful day when Dr. Joseph Mengele… pulled me out of the line leading to the gas chambers, I’ve been plagued by agonizing guilt: Why me?… Why was I spared from among all my friends?…” But as she stands before a classroom of children, her guilt is somewhat assuaged. Her commitment to teaching Hebrew and other Jewish subjects is some justification for her being alive. Bitton-Jackson married, continued her education with a Ph.D in Hebrew culture and Jewish history from New York University. She lives in Israel and New York with her husband. This is an intimate and on the whole, upbeat story. For ages 14 – 17.
Linda R. Silver is a specialist in Jewish children’s literature. She is editor of the Association of Jewish Libraries’ Jewish Valuesfinder, www.ajljewishvalues.org, and author of Best Jewish Books for Children and Teens: A JPS Guide (The Jewish Publication Society, 2010) and The Jewish Values Finder: A Guide to Values in Jewish Children’s Literature (Neal-Schuman, 2008).