Tova Friedman was born on September 7th, 1938 in Gdynia, Poland, a suburb of Danzig. Her family came from Tomaszow Mazowiecki, a small town near Lodz, Poland, and returned there as soon as the war broke out. Friedman is among the youngest people to survive the Nazi Holocaust, and one of 5000 Jewish children living in Tomaszow Mazowiecki  before World War II. At the end of the warm she was just one of five Jewish children to return. More than 150 members of Friedman’s family were murdered.

After spending several years in a German sanatorium for tuberculosis and Displaced Persons camps, Friedman and her parents arrived in the USA when she was 12 years old. They lived in Brooklyn where she met and married her husband of 60 years, Maier Friedman. She received her Bachelor of Arts degree in Psychology from Brooklyn College and a Master of Arts in Black Literatre from City College of New York. Together they immigrated to Israel and lived there for over ten years where she taught at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. After returning to the US, she earned her Master of Arts in Social Work from Rutgers University and became the director of Jewish Family Service of Somerset and Warren Counties for over 20 years and still works there as a therapist. Friedman has 4 children and 8 grandchildren. Friedman continues to share her story with students and audiences at public and private schools, at colleges and places of worship all over the country.