Lidia was just three years old when she arrived in Auschwitz-Birkenau with her mother, a member of the partisan resistance from Belarus. The bewildered little girl was picked out by Dr Josef Mengele for his sadistic experiments and sent to the infamous children’s block, where every day was a fight for survival. In eighteen months of hell she came close to death more than once. Her mother, who risked her life to visit Lidia, gave her strength. But when the camp was liberated, her mother was gone, presumed dead. Lidia, by now deeply traumatised, was adopted by a Polish woman. But then, in 1962, she discovered that her birth parents were still alive in the USSR, and Lidia was faced with an agonising choice . . . Lidia’s extraordinary story has touched hearts around the world, and she has made it her mission to bear witness to the Holocaust so that the truth may never be forgotten. This is a powerful and ultimately hopeful account by a remarkable woman who refuses to hate those who hurt her. She says, ‘Hate only brings more hate. Love, on the other hand, has the power to redeem.’
