The Boys: The true story of children who survived the concentration camps

‘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.