Holocaust survivor becomes internet star after using TikTok to tell younger generations about WWII atrocities
A Holocaust survivor from Gdynia is using TikTok to share her terrifying tale of survival and bring attention to the atrocities committed against European Jews during World War Two.
Sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau in 1944 when she was just five years old, Tova Friedman was one of the death camp’s youngest survivors.
The videos are filmed by her teenage grandson Aron Goodman who started the TikTok account so that Tova could talk about her early years and the horrors she saw.
Now the 85-year-old has over 500,000 followers on TikTok, and her videos have had 8.8 million likes and 75 million views since they first went live a year and a half ago.
In the first pinned video on Tova's TikTok account with nearly a million views is a photo that is now iconic taken in January 1945 that shows Tova with other Jewish children showing off their Auschwitz tattoos following the camp’s liberation.
Made in the living room of the family home in Morristown, New Jersey, the videos have gone viral with viewers sending questions and commenting on how much they have learnt from Tova.
The videos are filmed by her teenage grandson Aron Goodman who started the TikTok account so that she could talk about her early years and the horrors she saw.
Made in the living room of the family home in Morristown, New Jersey, the videos have since gone viral.
Aron said: “It really snowballed. And then we realized it was a fabulous medium for the Holocaust, for young people who don´t want to read the books, who don't like the classes in school, who don't like the way the teachers teach or whatever, who are bored with it, or some who never heard of it. Here they are, listening.”
Aron said: “It really snowballed. And then we realized it was a fabulous medium for the Holocaust, for young people who don´t want to read the books, who don't like the classes in school, who don't like the way the teachers teach or whatever, who are bored with it, or some who never heard of it. Here they are, listening.”
Commenters on the videos thank Aron and Tova for posting the films, saying they had not learned much about the Holocaust in school.
In the first pinned video on Tova's TikTok account with nearly a million views is a photo that is now iconic taken in January 1945 that shows Tova with other Jewish children showing off their Auschwitz tattoos following the camp’s liberation.
Born in 1938, following Hitler’s invasion of Poland a year later, Tova and her family were sent to the Tomaszów Mazowiecki ghetto.
Following its liquidation she was deported with her parents to the Nazi-German labour camp in Starachowice before being herded into a cattle car with her mother sent to the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp.
Born in 1938, following Hitler’s invasion of Poland a year later, Tova and her family were sent to the Tomaszów Mazowiecki ghetto (pictured).
Her father was sent to Dachau.
Tova said: “I was born one year before the war, so I didn't understand freedom. I didn't understand school. I didn't understand kindergarten.
On the day she arrived at Auschwitz, she said that most children her age were “killed immediately because we were useless.”
“I thought that was the way you have to live. Jewish children are going to be killed, and your job is to keep safe, to make sure you behave in such a way that you don't get shot. It was a normal everyday occurrence and death all around me.”
For six months in Birkenau, Tova witnessed atrocities, the memories of which have stayed with her all her life. In her films, she recalls how she was saved from the gas chamber twice.
On the day she arrived at Auschwitz, she said that most children her age were “killed immediately because we were useless.”
For six months in Birkenau, Tova witnessed atrocities, the memories of which have stayed with her all her life. In her films, she recalls how she was saved from the gas chamber twice.
However, she said that the Germans didn’t gas her on the day she arrived because it was a Sunday, which was the guards’ day off.
“I guess they thought they would get me later on,” she said.
Later, Tova was sent to the gas chamber and forced to remove her clothes in preparation for gassing, but she survived for reasons that to this day have remained a mystery to her.
Returning to their hometown of Tomaszów Mazowiecki, where Tova's father found them, the family left Poland in 1950 to start a new life in the United States.
In a video, Tova said: “They rounded us up, all the children in our barrack. They walked us to the gas chamber. We got in there. It was a gigantic room. We all got undressed, and they told us to make sure we could find our clothing, as if we weren't going to be killed.
“We stood there naked for a number of hours freezing, absolutely freezing, and then they just sent us back. They were screaming and yelling at each other, and I understood at the age of six and a half that they got the wrong barrack, and they were going to get us later.
“But, in truth, I really don't know what happened, why they sent us back.”
In 2022, Tova wrote her memoirs entitled The Daughter of Auschwitz.
In January 1945, the Germans escaped from Auschwitz, murdering any of the remaining prisoners. Tova and her mother hid among the corpses.
When liberation came Tova said it was “'one of the happiest days of my life.”
Returning to their hometown of Tomaszów Mazowiecki, where Tova's father found them, the family left Poland in 1950 to start a new life in the United States.
