The Boys: The Untold Story of 732 Young Concentration Camp Survivors - Hardcover

Gilbert, Martin

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0805044027 ISBN 13: 9780805044027

Publisher: Henry Holt & Co, 1997

Synopsis

A group of Jews, male and female, from Poland and Hungary who survived the concentration camps as teenagers and met together in Prague in 1945 recreates their nightmarish experiences and their saving faith in their own voices.

About this title

Review:

At the end of World War II, Britain offered to take in 1,000 young survivors of the German concentration camps; only 732 could be found. The Boys is the story of those children, mostly Polish and Hungarian Jews who, against all odds, survived the horrors of the camps. The title is slightly misleading, as there were a few girls in the group; however, girls under the age of 16 were murdered in the camps at much higher rates than boys. At the time of their ordeal, most of these children were in their teens, though a few were younger. By the time the war ended and the camps were liberated, many were near death. The youths' survival was certainly due in part to their own determination to live, but it was also a matter of chance--unexpected kindness, serendipitous opportunities, the luck of the draw.

Drawn together by their shared experience, "the boys" remained close after emigration to England, and even though several of them have since moved to America and Canada, they continue to celebrate their friendship with an annual dinner. Author Martin Gilbert has attended these reunions for 20 years. Three years ago he suggested the boys send him their recollections of life in the camps, and from these memories this book takes its shape. Harrowing, horrifying, yet deeply moving, The Boys stands as a testimonial to those who survived the Holocaust as well as those who did not.

About the Author:

MARTIN GILBERT is the author of more than seventy books and a leading historian of the modern world.
Gilbert was born in London in 1936. He was sent to Canada at the age of three-and-a-half in an effort to escape the war, but returned home soon thereafter. He graduated from Oxford in 1960 and wrote his first book, called The Appeasers. In 1961, after a year of research and writing, Gilbert was asked to join a team of researchers working for Winston Churchill. At the age of 25, he was formally inducted into the team, doing all of his own research. Gilbert became known as Churchill’s official biographer and has remained so ever since. He is a fellow of Merton College at Oxford and has written numerous books—some on Churchill, such as his multivolume treatise called Churchill, some on the Holocaust (Surviving the Holocaust), and some on the war itself (The Second World War). He continues to write on the struggles of Jews during the war and the histories of this world, from culture to culture.
In 1995 he was knighted “for services to British history and international relations” and in 1999 he was awarded a Doctorate of Literature by the University of Oxford for the totality of his published work. He now divides his time between London, Ontario, and London, England.

About this edition

• Publisher: Henry Holt & Co
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 0805044027
• ISBN 13: 9780805044027
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 511