‘Daughter of Auschwitz’ Chronicles the Life of One of the Youngest Holocaust Survivors

Judy Woodruff:

A new book is out today that tells the harrowing story of one young girl's survival through the Holocaust.

I spoke recently with that once young girl and her co-author, who is well-known to our "NewsHour" viewers.

Tola Grossman was just a 5-year-old Jewish girl in 1944 when she and her parents were shipped in cattle cars to the Nazi extermination camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau. She would become one of the youngest survivors of the camp, freed as the Red Army swept across Poland and into Germany in 1945, and the depths of the horrors inflicted on the Jews of Europe became apparent.

She and her mother had been separated from her father at Auschwitz, not knowing his fate. They left the camp in April 1945. Her mother uttered one word: "Remember."

Tola Grossman is now Tova Friedman. And she's written a deeply vivid and affecting account of her life then and since. It's called "The Daughter of Auschwitz: My Story of Resilience, Survival and Hope."

Her co-author is our very own Malcolm Brabant. And we are just delighted to have them joining us from London.

Hello to both of you, Tova and to Malcolm.

I just have to — this book came about as a result of Malcolm coming to report on the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. And he was talking to you.

Tova, how did this book idea come about?

Tova Friedman, Co-Author, "The Daughter of Auschwitz: My Story of Resilience, Survival and Hope": Well, he was talking to me.

And I told him that, for years, I wanted to write a book about my life. I started many times, but I just wasn't disciplined enough. And I'm not really a very good writer, at least not such a serious book.

So, the first thing what he did, though, he made a short program for your — I think for your TV, right? And it was fabulous.

We are here to uncover evil. That's what we're here for.

All my friends that everybody said it was one of the best short programs about me, because he combines music and background and my story, and what he wrote was very appropriate.

So, shortly after that, I think he called and — right, and we said something about, maybe we should really write the book that you have been talking about.