The Boy Who Didn’t Want to Die

A story of survival, of love between mother and son and

of enduring hope in the face of unspeakable hardship. An important

read.

The Boy Who Didn’t Want to Die describes an extraordinary

journey, made by Peter, a boy of five, through

war-torn Europe in 1944 and 1945. Peter and his parents set out

from a small Hungarian town, travelling through Austria and then

Germany together. Along the way, unforgettable images of adventure

flash one after another: sleeping in a tent and then under the

sky, discovering a disused brick factory, catching butterflies

in the meadows - and as Peter realises that this adventure

is really a nightmare - watching bombs falling

from the blue sky outside Vienna, learning maths from his mother

in Belsen. All this is drawn against a background of terror,

starvation, infection and, inevitably, death, before Peter and

his mother can return home.

Professor Peter Lantos is a Fellow of the Academy

of Medical Sciences and in his previous life was an internationally

renowned clinical neuroscientist. His memoir, Parallel

Lines (Arcadia Books, 2006) was translated into

Hungarian, German and Italian. Closed Horizon (Arcadia,

2012) was his first novel.

Peter was awarded the British Empire Medal in 2020 for ‘services

to Holocaust education and awareness’. He is one of

the last of the generation of survivors and this - his first

book for children - will serve as a testimony to his experience.

Peter lives in London.