Why a Booktrail?
1940s: The most heartbreaking story you will ever hear
The Road to Auschwitz: Fragments of a Life
What you need to know before your trail
The Road to Auschwitz is the autobiography of Hedi Fried, a fifteen-year-old living in Sighet, Romania, when war breaks out in 1939. In March 1944, Hedi’s family, along with three thousand other Jews from her village, are confined to a ghetto, awaiting shipment to Auschwitz. In Auschwitz, amidst the horror, Hedi turns twenty, her sister, Livi, fifteen. As Hedi and Livi will later learn, their parents do not survive.
In April 1945, the sisters are transported to Bergen-Belsen, two months before liberation. Upon liberation, Hedi renews her acquaintance with Michael, another survivor from Sighet. They move to Sweden, marry, and eventually have three sons. It is the loss of Michael, when Hedi is only forty, that prompts this memoir. “It took me forty years to realize that I am a witness and that it is my task to tell what I experienced.”
Travel Guide
One woman’s account of life in Auschwitz
There are many questions that someone would want to ask the author about her experiences so she answers many of them in this book. How can you even start to ask someone about such a tragic part of their life? Yet, it is important for her voice to be heard:
Hédi Fried answers questions like:
What is the worst thing that ever happened to you?
What did it mean to you to have your sister with you in Auschwitz?
Were you hungry all the time?
What helped you to survive?
When did you understand that a genocide was taking place?
Do you think it could happen again?
After all this, do you still believe in God?
This is a journey in every sense of the word – from Romania via Auschwitz and Bergen Belsen to the safety of Sweden and a new life.
Booktrail Boarding Pass: The Road to Auschwitz: Fragments of a Life
Destination : Romania, Auschwitz, Sweden Author/Guide: Hedi Fried Departure Time: 1940s
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