The Boys
The true story of children who survived the concentration camps
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4.0 • 1 Rating
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- £2.99
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- £2.99
Publisher Description
'Impossible to put down ... This is a book about coming out of hell, about great evil, about the triumph of the human spirit, and about the great goodness on the part of those who helped. One is left with hope, and admiration' Julia Neuberger, THE TIMES
'A story of human resilience, fortitude and victory that restores the readers' hope for mankind' SUNDAY TIMES
'This is the story of human beings sucked into a vortex of destruction in which family, identity, religion and culture were all ripped away. A sense of near-miraculous calm descends when the Boys finally arrive in Britain, when human fortitude finally prevails over absolute evil' David Cesarani, TLS
In August 1945, the first of 732 child survivors of the Holocaust reached Britain. First settled in the Lake District, they formed a tightly knit group of friends whose terrible shared experience is almost beyond imagining. This is their story, which begins in the lost communities of pre-World War II central Europe, moves through ghetto, concentration camp and death march, to liberation, survival, and finally, fifty years later, a deeply moving reunion. Martin Gilbert has brought together the recollections of this remarkable group of survivors to tell their astonishing stories.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this harrowing oral history, eminent Oxford historian Gilbert reclaims a stirring chapter of Holocaust history. In 1945 the British Home Office announced that 1000 children, age 16 and under, who survived the Nazi genocide would be allowed to settle in Britain. Only 732 could be found and were flown over from Prague and Munich. Most of them had seen their parents and siblings murdered or deported to extermination camps by the Nazis. Calling themselves "The Boys" (even though approximately 80 were women), these survivors of death camps, slave labor camps and death marches forged strong personal bonds among themselves, holding annual reunions and forming their own charitable organization, the '45 Aid Society. Forty of the group served in the Israeli defense forces in 1948, when newly independent Israel was attacked by Arab armies. Hundreds eventually emigrated to Palestine, the U.S., Canada, Brazil and elsewhere. By letting the survivors tell their own stories of shattered childhood, torment, liberation and readjustment to society, with a minimum of commentary, Gilbert has fashioned a remarkable testimonial, rich in vibrant reminiscences of Eastern European Jewish communities practicing a way of life forever destroyed. Photos.
