This will be a hit with my many middle schoolers who love both memoirs and World War II novels. That being said, I won't recommend it to my sensitive readers as Friedman's experience as one of the few child survivors of Auschwitz is heart-breaking more than once. It is a gripping story of survival, especially the lengths her mother went to in Auschwitz and how much her parents continued to sacrifice after the end of the war. Friedman tells her story to a classmate once she immigrates to the US, and this entry into her story should help my students to connect as well.

The first thing Tova remembers is hiding under the table where she felt safe. She would go there whenever she heard the boots when the Germans walked by their home. One day the front door was knocked down and the family was forcibly removed to ghetto. They lived in the ghetto until they were no longer useful to the Nazis. They were put on cattle trucks with thousands of others and sent to the concentration camps. Tova's mother, while terrified, was a loving and protective mother who did everything she could to train her daughter to survive. She was taken away from her parents and lived in a barracks with other children. There was always two to a “bed.” One da Tova woke up to find her bedmate dead. Finally the concentration camp was “freed” by the Russians. Tova ends up going to the Unite States with her parents in 1950. They continued to face antisemitism and struggled to reassimilate Tova went to school even though she didn’t know English. The school wasn’t comfortable having Tova as a student. The students didn’t know what to make of her.

This true story by Tova Friedman, who was one of the few child survivors of the Holocaust, recalls her story when forcibly taken as a five year old child with her parents to Auschwitz. It is a story of remarkable courage, bravery, endurance of the horrible suffering. I followed Tova’s life throughout the book and found myself crying at the horrors of living in a concentration camp as a child. I think this book should be read y everyone as I believe/hopt that will realize the holocaust was real.

Heartbreaking and honest portrayal of a Jewish girl’s experiences in the Nazi concentration camp. She is only five years old when she is taken with her mother to live in Auschwitz. Tova tells her story with great detail about starvation, abuse, and fear, describing the many times she narrowly escaped death. Important eyewitness account to the Holocaust.
Recommend.
Thank you to Netgalley for the chance to review this book.

There are so many books out there about the Holocaust and the survivor's experience. What sets the Daughter of Auschwitz apart is that Tova, the main character and author, who goes by Tola in the story, well, her story begins when she is just a toddler.

Beginning as a three-year old in a small Polish suburb, we follow Tola from her cozy home with her parents and their large families, to a cramped apartment in the ghetto. The ghetto has one thing consistent to their apartment, Tola's "safe place" is under the table, and once in the ghetto, that becomes her own space - where she sleeps, plays, and spends much of her days. Slowly, the world around Tola disintegrates - first the Nazi's take her father's family, then her mother's, then, after a horrific episode of hiding, they finally take Tola and her parents. They survived multiple ghettos only to end up in a concentration camp. At this point, Tola was just five years old.

And that's what sets this story apart from others - the story is told by a survivor and activist, and begins when she is just a toddler. Tova shares her memories with just enough detail to express the incomprehensible reality she experienced as a very young child to chill readers, without drawing out the horrific details, often found in YA and adult Holocaust reads.

This is going to be a must read for middle grades. Follow Tova's story on her social media, created and maintained by her grandson, featuring snippets of her story.

Tova Friedman is one of the youngest people to survive Auschwitz. This is her story of what she saw and experienced throughout her young life.

This short, intense novel is told by Tola, a girl who was sent to Auschwitz with her parents when she was 5. She and both her parents survived, but lived through some truly terrible events. This would be an excellent book for students learning about the Holocaust and would provide tons of opportunities for conversation about man's inhumanity to man as well as how events like this could have transpired.

First, I want to say that I appreciate hearing the author's story. I think it is imperative that we read and listen to firsthand accounts of the atrocities of the Holocaust.

I thought this book was written very matter-of-factly and it was a very fast read. I think it would be great if there were something at the beginning to let readers know that this is a non-fiction book, because it's written like a story and might not be immediately apparent. I also thought that the writing style could be a bit off-putting. It was fine, but not the most well-written story. I think young readers editions of books can be hit or miss, and this one was a miss for me. I found the use of language odd for the age level. I think middle grade readers might struggle with this book.

I'm glad Tola/Tova was able to tell her story. I'm planning on reading the original version of her book soon.

Thank you to Netgalley and HarperCollins for the free e-arc in exchange for an honest review!

My only criticism of this book is that I wish the opening made it more clear and obvious that this is a first-hand account. There have been several historical fiction novels written for young people that expose the horrors of the Holocaust (Devil’s Arithmetic, Number the Stars, Someone Named Eva), yet knowing that the author actually lived the atrocities described is a powerful thing. Truth be told, the narrative style in this book is not the most engaging; it is very matter-of-fact and direct. But it IS true and written in a way that is accessible for young people.

As a teacher and a mother, I have a hard time deciding what age it would be most appropriate to share this with. For more sensitive individuals, I would wait for 8th grade and above.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing the advanced digital copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

Wow! Just wow! I have read many WWII stories and they are always emotional. This hit even more emotionally for me with the main character being only 5 years old when she was sent to a concentration camp. Everything that happened to her, her family, and so many others is so heart wrenching.
I really like how it starts with when Tola is 12 and trying to fit in as a Holocaust survivor in an American school. So often we think of the horror of what the survivors went through during WWII, but what about what they continued to go through for the rest of their lives! The book is so powerful and so moving to read. I am thankful that Tova has taken the time to write this in a way that children can consume and feel so many emotions. Please share it with your children so that Tova’s story can help more people remember.

There are very few first hand accounts of the horrors of the Holocaust. There are even fewer that were written for kids in middle school or high school. This is a must read and better than Anne Frank in terms of actually understanding what was going on. Additionally, the young people’s edition reads so well. You can see the horrors through her eyes. The fear, the luck, the fortitude. Absolutely amazing.

I did not read the original so I do not know how it compares, but I often find that the versions stripped down for teens hit all of the necessary notes. In today’s political climate, making sure that the story gets told, that people understand. In her epilogue, Friedman comments on how so few people were aware of the atrocities that happened. I see that in my own experiences in a rural southern town. With so few survivors left, I am especially glad she told her story this way.

* Thank you to NetGalley and HarperCollins for a digital review copy. All opinions are my own.

Tova Friedman’s The Daughter of Auschwitz offers a powerful, middle-grade adaptation of her adult memoir, recounting her childhood experiences as one of the youngest Holocaust survivors. The book provides a poignant and necessary glimpse into the horrors of Auschwitz through the eyes of a child, making it an essential read for younger audiences learning about this dark chapter in history.

Friedman’s account is deeply moving, detailing the unimaginable struggles she and her family faced. The narrative highlights moments of resilience and survival, showing the extraordinary strength required to endure such circumstances. While the book does an admirable job of making these difficult events accessible to middle-grade readers, the writing at times feels slightly distant, perhaps due to the adaptation process.

Though undeniably impactful, the memoir might have benefited from a bit more depth in emotional introspection or character development to connect younger readers more fully to Tova’s perspective. Still, The Daughter of Auschwitz remains an important and educational read that sheds light on history while honoring the survivors’ courage.

This was such an eye opening story that really brings you back to WW2 and the holocaust. It hurts my heart to learn the things that holocaust survivors endured, but it is also so great to have books like this one to educate people around still.

This story is Tova recounting how she survived the Holocaust. She survived a Ghetto, a work camp and finally Auschwitz. Not only did she survive, but her parents did too. I’ve read several books on the Holocaust, but it still doesn’t make reading the accounts any easier. It astonishing that Tova and her parent survived all that they did. I think it is so important that this is never forgotten and people learn from this atrocity! I do think that this would be better suited for older middle grade to almost YA.

Tova Friedman here recounts her own story as one of the youngest children to survive Auschwitz’s during the Holocaust, framed as a retelling to a friend she has met and trusts in New York, after World War II.

The book is an ostensibly middle reader version of Friedman’s adult book of the same, told from Tola’s (Friedman’s original name) point of view, first-person narrative, during the events of her life starting before the war. However, I had a hard time believing this is actually written for middle readers, not because of the content of the book itself (which is graphic and doesn’t hold back on the details of what Tola experiences before and during her stay at the death camp), but because of the language itself.

I worked at Houghton Mifflin as a line editor and developer in middle reader English textbooks as my first job in publishing and learned a great deal about language levels for reading comprehension for different age groups of children and how word charts are applied to text for children’s books. This book constantly uses words that are far beyond middle readers and brought me out of the story over and over again.

I must say that as a bookstore owner now, I can’t recommend this book for middle readers; young adults, yes, but middle readers, no. And that’s a shame, because it’s about Tova/Tola, told from her point of view, detail by detail about the death camp, Auschwitz, about her daily experiences with the guards, with others in the camp, with her mother, with the deprivations, starvation, cruelty, murder, and psychological torture the Nazis subjected both adults and young children to on a daily basis. The surety Tova/Tola had every day, ingrained into her as “normal,” that she would die at any moment. And the terrible normality for such a young child that this was her entire life: death all around her, death for herself.

And yet, the target audience will have a hard time reading this because of the actual language used. I hate circling around to that again, but there it is: it’s all about language with middle readers books. If a child can’t understand the words, they will put the book down. Not all: I was one of those children that lived with a dictionary at my elbow, even as a middle reader. But I was also neurodivergent, reading way above my level and a definite book geek.

I wish this book were written at middle reader level; I’d recommend it in a heartbeat. It’s such an important story; every child (every person!) should know about the Holocaust, and I feel the details in this books are necessary for the impact of the narrative. Some parents won’t want their children exposed to the fact that children were killed, that adults as well as children were shot, naked, starved, and thrown into pits like firewood. And yet it must never happen again, and to know that fact everyone, including children, need to know exactly what the Nazis did to Jews and marginalized people.

Though written for middle readers (despite the language level problems), I’d recommend this book to upper middle readers who are verging on young adult, as well as young adults. Tova’s story needs to be heard by this generation.

Thank you HarperCollins Children's Books for providing this book for review consideration via NetGalley. All opinions are my own.

Summary: Tova Friedman recounts her harrowing childhood as one of the youngest survivors of Auschwitz, detailing the unimaginable horrors of the Holocaust, her family’s resilience, and the extraordinary will to survive against all odds.

My review: The Daughter of Auschwitz offers one of the most profoundly real glimpses into the Holocaust, made even more impactful through the eyes of a child. Tova Friedman recounts her terrifying and exceptional childhood, surviving against all odds when so many others did not. Her story is both heartbreaking and inspiring, a testament to resilience and perseverance in the face of unimaginable horrors. I strongly encourage anyone to read this memoir, as it is a powerful reminder of both the depths of human cruelty and the strength of the human spirit.

Genres/Themes: Juvenile Nonfiction / History - Holocaust / Biography & Autobiography - Historical / History - Europe

The Daughter of Auschwitz is scheduled for publication on April 1, 2025, by HarperCollins Children's Books.

** spoiler alert ** I read a lot of holocaust books and yet I am surprised to always find out about more and more horror that the survivors lived through. I guess the reason why this story hit me hard was because we are reading about what Tola went through at such a young age. The poor little girl was so small that she fell through the latrine. I wonder if that was how she got TB. Also, when she was at a separate camp and she received the slice of bread from her mom & she decided to save it in a bag and wrap it around her body so that no one would steal it only to be woken up by rats crawling up her body and stealing her bread. Tola was one of the lucky ones to survive into her 80’s after living through a lot of hardship.

I appreciated getting learn Tova Friedman's story through this book. I appreictae getting to learn the story and how it was used during this time. It was written perfectly and enjoyed getting to read this.