Fortress of My Youth

The story of a young girl who tells us how she and her family were taken to the Czech ghetto town of Terezin (Theresienstadt), what she ate there, how her friends died from disease, how thousands were sent on to Auschwitz, how her family was killed, and how she escaped the gas chamber. Jana Renee Friesova also tells of love, joy and sacrifice: musicians and intellectuals among the inmates who passed on their cultural heritage to the youth; Czechs outside the walls who smuggled in food; and her singing in performances of Smetana and Verdi, the most profound experiences of her life.