Morristown, N.J. — Tova Friedman, an 85-year-old survivor of the Holocaust, is a TikTok celebrity thanks to her 17-year-old grandson.

He films brief clips of his grandmother recalling life in 1944 and 1945 while she was a 6-year-old girl at the Auschwitz concentration camp in Nazi-occupied Poland in the family's living room in Morristown, New Jersey. She also talks about what she did before and after the camp.

Since the pair began posting on her account in September 2021, they claim that videos there have received 75 million views.

It really took off, according to Friedman. "And then we realized it was a fantastic medium for the Holocaust, for young people who don't want to read the books, who don't like the classes in school, who don't like the way the teachers teach or whatever, who are bored with it, or some who have never heard of it," said one of the team members. They are present and attentive.

Aron Goodman, her grandson, claimed that the most popular videos were "those that show her number," the prisoner identification tattooed on their arms at Auschwitz.

People from all over the world rarely have the opportunity to see a survivor or the history written on their arm, according to Goodman. So we kind of spread our message through social media and TikTok, and we show the evidence of the Holocaust that people wrongfully deny.

Many of the commenters on the videos thank Friedman for sharing her memories, noting that they had learned little to nothing in school about the Holocaust.

According to Goodman, he creates the videos to combat online antisemitism and inform the TikTok generation about the horrors of the Holocaust.

"We need to focus on the history and warn people where hate can lead if it's unchecked and if no one does anything about it," the high schooler said.

A black-and-white video from another TikTok shows Friedman playing with other Jewish kids in the early days of 1945 as she pulls up her sleeve to reveal the tattooed number on her arm. A week after liberating the camp, the Soviet military made the movie.

When Friedman views the movie, she is reminded of her mother, who is nearby but out of view. Her mother taught Friedman how to survive in the camp by avoiding eye contact with the guards and hiding among the corpses. After the war, her mother fell into despair and passed away in her mid-forties.

After what she saw, Friedman said that she is frequently asked how she can ever love or trust others. Friedman claimed to have witnessed numerous other Holocaust survivors who had lost their families in the camps later remarry and have additional children, known back then as "replacement children."

"The Daughter of Auschwitz," a book by therapist and social worker Friedman about her experiences, asserts that "life is resilient and you can live again." I want people to be aware of this. It is the belief that humanity will eventually recover.