I Have Lived a Thousand Years

Prior to her experience in the ghetto, Bitton-Jackson says she had not considered whether she was proud to be Jewish. Sharing the fate of the Jewish people in the ghetto changes this, and she feels “happy to share this peculiar condition of Jewishness” (41). Throughout the book, Britton-Jackson, her family, and her fellow Jewish inmates find solace in their faith and strive to observe its laws. After Markus’ business is shut down, he finds comfort reading the Talmud. The night before authorities transport him to a labor camp, he studies the Talmud with Bubi and tells him to remember these passages when he thinks of his father in the future. Britton-Jackson observes fasts for both Yom Kippur and Passover, despite the physical risks in her malnourished condition. Inmates recite Psalms in the camps. After Beth’s sisters are killed during an Allied bombing, Laura reminds her of the Hebrew date of her sisters’ deaths. Bubi rends his and his sister’s garments when they learn of their father’s death and reminds her they must observe Jewish law by sitting shiva.

Bitton-Jackson also explores the importance of preserving Jewish culture and community through times of persecution. In Chapter 11, when Jewish communities are deported from the ghetto and prepared for transport to Auschwitz, Bitton-Jackson refers to The Wandering Jews, Joseph Roth’s non-fiction book about the mid-1920s displacement of Jews and other refugees.