THE FORBIDDEN DAUGHTER
The True Story of a Holocaust Survivor
The unforgettable true story of a girl born in the Kovno Ghetto, and the dangerous risk her parents faced in defying the barbarous Nazi law prohibiting childbirth.
Elida Friedman was not supposed to have been born. In the Kovno Ghetto in Lithuania, Nazi law forbade Jewish women from giving birth. Yet despite the fear of death, Dr. Jonah Friedman and his wife Tzila, choose to bring a daughter into the world, a little girl they name Elida–meaning non-birth in Hebrew.
To increase their child’s chance of survival, the Friedmans smuggle the baby out of the ghetto and into the arms of a non-Jewish farm family when Elida is only three months old.
The unforgettable true story of a girl born in the Kovno Ghetto, and the dangerous risk her parents faced in defying the barbarous Nazi law prohibiting childbirth.
Elida Friedman was not supposed to have been born. In the Kovno Ghetto in Lithuania, Nazi law forbade Jewish women from giving birth. Yet despite the fear of death, Dr. Jonah Friedman and his wife Tzila, choose to bring a daughter into the world, a little girl they name Elida–meaning non-birth in Hebrew.
To increase their child’s chance of survival, the Friedmans smuggle the baby out of the ghetto and into the arms of a non-Jewish farm family when Elida is only three months old. It is the beginning of a life marked by constant upheaval. When the Nazis raze the entire Kovno Ghetto, Jonah and Tzila are among those killed. Their only child is left orphaned and alone, dependent on the kindness of strangers.
Despite her circumstances, Elida grows up, changing families, countries, continents, and even names, countless times. Surviving the war and the Holocaust that stole her parents, the young woman never gives up hope. In her lifelong pursuit to find love and belonging, she works to rebuild her identity and triumph over her terrible circumstances.
A moving, powerful chronicle of overcoming impossible odds, The Forbidden Daughter is the true story of one unforgettable woman and her will to survive.
- Harper Paperbacks
- Paperback
- April 2024
- 288 Pages
- 9780063296657
Buy the Book
$19.99
About Zipora Klein Jakob
Zipora Klein Jakob holds academic degrees in Literature and History. She was a high school History teacher, a pedagogical counselor for university History education, and the manager of the Educator’s Promotion Division at the Open University. She also coaches memoirists.
Praise
“The searing story of a woman who refused to let tragedy guide her future, despite it marring her past, and the ripple effect on the people who had terrible, unthinkable choices to make during the darkest of days.” — Rachelle Unreich, author of A Brilliant Life
“Elida’s story is miraculous . . . . An engrossing tale with heart-rending details of its subject’s difficult life at each trying stage.” — Kirkus Reviews