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

A LSO BY L IVIA B ITTON -J ACKSON :

Dedicated to the State of Israel on the occasion of its Jubilee year and to the men and womenmany in their teenswho 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 Childrens Publishing Division
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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-BittonChildhood and youthJuvenile literature.
2. Holocaust survivorsSlovakiaBiographyJuvenile literature.
3. Jewish teenagersSlovakiaBiographyJuvenile literature.
[1. Jackson, Livia BittonChildhood and youth. 2. Holocaust
survivors. 3. JewsSlovakia. 4. WomenBiography.] I. Title.
DS135.S55J33 1999 940.5318092dc21 [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

When I was thirteen, German soldiers bearing Nazi flags marched into Budapest, the capital of Hungary, and my life changed forever. Within days my familymy mother, my father, my brother, my aunt, and myselfwere 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 liberationthe 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 attempted to reclaim our lives while carrying the burden of the past. It is the story of our frantic search for love and meaning at a time when the world around us seemed to be collapsing under the aftershocks of the war.

This is the story of triumphs in the face of overwhelming odds, of extraordinary events in extraordinary times. And yet, I believe it is essentially the story of a teenager. It reflects the struggles, fears, and aspirations shared by many teenagers at any given time.

That teenager could have been you.

Homecoming

amorn, JuneJuly 1945

We are home.

The farmer who gave us a ride in his cart deposits the three of usmy mother, brother, and myselfin front of our house, the family home from which we were deported over a year ago. The house still stands on the hill where it has been for half a century. It huddles in the shade of the ample acacia tree, just like before. But it is no longer sunny yellow. Its faded yellow is dappled by gray. And it has no windows. They have been removed from their hinges.

We were brutally wrenched from its bosom more than a year ago, and now, like a mad old woman, the house gapes at us, uncomprehending, unwelcoming.

The three of us approach our beloved house with bated breath. One by one we move through the cobweb of time, across the small courtyard into the large kitchen, the airy salon, the bedrooms. They are all bare... bereft of furniture, dishes, appliances, curtains, carpets. Even the water pump from the well is gone.

And there is a pile of human excrement in every room.

Our fondly remembered castle is a barren, debased skeleton. A vacant shell, divested of its soul.

Who did all this? Who robbed us of our home?

And where is Daddy?

He must be staying with someone else, Mommy reassures us. How could he live here?

How can anyone live here?

Straw! Mommy exclaims brightly. Lets get some straw from our neighbors. It will be fine. We can sleep on straw. Mother is back in her element.

Our neighbors, the Botlses and the Plutzers across the street, and the Mrys down the block, are staggered when they see us. Are we ghosts having returned from the dead? They clutch their faces with both hands and shake their heads in disbelief. Alarm turns their exclamations into little shrieks of horror:

Jesus Maria! Mrs. Friedmann?! Is that you?

Elli?! Can this be you?

Oh, sweet Jesus! This cant be young Mr. Friedmann!

Youve come back! I cant believe it. We thought... we thought no one would come back from there!