A woman's remarkable story of survival during Germany's occupation of Poland, one of the darkest times during WW2. Kitty Felix and her family survive the Lublin ghettos and try to cross into the Soviet Union, only to have to turn back and plan another way out of the ghetto. Bravely posing as laborers inside the Reich, Kitty and her mother are identified as Jews and subsequently imprisoned in Germany, where they receive a death sentence. After being forced in front of a long line of machine guns and made to face a brick wall, she and her mother escape death by a laughing firing squad, and are transferred to Auschwitz. Kitty and her mother survive eighteen horrifying months inside one of the most feared concentration camps and a death march across an icy, freezing Germany, before being liberated by American troops.

This is a story of a brave struggle to survive. It's heartbreaking to hear such horrendous crimes done to innocent lives. Kitty struggled to survive whatever way she had to, often times barely escaping extermination herself. Kitty pushed herself to live another day through hunger, mental torture, brutal whippings, illness, and some of the most unspeakable acts of brutality so she could live to tell the story of those that died and those that survived a genocide that DID happen. Kitty Hart once wore the number 39934 to prove it. This is her tale of terror inside Auschwitz and her return to Auschwitz as a free woman with her grown son in 1978. It's an amazing story and it moved me to tears. Everyone should read this book at least once. ( )

* Inherited from Mum's shelves.

1903 Return to Auschwitz: The remarkable story of a girl who survived the Holocaust, by Kitty Hart (read 17 Jan 1985) The author was at Auschwitz and survived. It is a horrible story, and reading it is no fun. The author is not a wholly admirable character, but one cannot blame her--no wholly saint-like person could have survived as she did. ( )