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. With magisterial narration, he tells their astonishing stories. The Boys bears witness to the human spirit, enduring the depths, and bearing hopefully the burden and challenge of survival.
‘Martin Gilbert is to be congratulated on producing a masterly and deeply moving tribute to those who had the courage and luck to survive’ Literary Review
Martin Gilbert has brought together the recollections of this remarkable group of survivors. With magisterial narration, he tells their astonishing stories. The Boys bears witness to the human spirit, enduring the depths, and bearing hopefully the burden and challenge of survival.
‘Martin Gilbert is to be congratulated on producing a masterly and deeply moving tribute to those who had the courage and luck to survive’ Literary Review
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Reviews
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
Martin Gilbert is to be congratulated on producing a masterly and deeply moving tribute to those who had the courage and luck to survive
Assembled by one of the period's premier historians ... A uniquely effective addition to Holocaust literature
Martin Gilbert has given us yet another indispensable work
A story of human resilience, fortitude and victory that restores the readers' hope for mankind
A series of testimonials to endurance and resourcefulness
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
A moving mosaic comprising the voices of the young refugees, setting this against eye-witness accounts of the European experience ... The scope is vast. Research at its best
It is only when you read individual stories like these that you can come anywhere near grasping the full enormity of the events
He doesn't hide the dark side of the stories: he does stress the resilience of their humanity. It's amazing and true
This is an important book ... [an] appalling and wonderful account of efficiently administered savagery, and how a few of its victims with extraordinary courage, resilience and luck, managed to salvage their humanity
A masterpiece of decency, courage and joy ... superb