Jana Renee Friesova was fifteen when she was imprisoned by the Nazis in the Czech ghetto town of Terezin. Her memoir tells the poignantly familiar story of a young girl who, even under the most abominable circumstances, engages in intense adolescent friendships, worries with her companions over her looks, and falls in love.
Anne Frank s diary ends with deportation to a concentration camp; Fortress of My Youth, in contrast, takes the reader deep into the horrors of daily life in a camp that were faced by a young girl and her family. But Friesova also tells of love, joy, sacrifice,...