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The Kindness of the Hangman: Even in Hell, There is Hope
The Kindness of the Hangman is the inspiring true story of a young German boy, Henry Oster, and his struggle for survival against Nazi persecution, slave labor, starvation and the threat of extermination. Henry Oster was just five years old, a wide-eyed boy from the beautiful ancient city of Cologne, Germany, when Adolf Hitler took power in 1933. Even though Henry's father was a wounded, decorated German soldier in World War I, the Nazis' cruel obsession with Jews turned the Oster's lives into a spiral of persecution and desperation. Henry and his family were ostracized, vilified and brutalized. They were torn from their home and deported to the infamous Lodz, Poland Ghetto, where desperate Jews were imprisoned on their way to the Nazi death camps. Henry struggled to keep himself and his family alive and together in a world where the slightest misstep would earn them a date with the Ghetto hangman. He worked crippling hours, scrounged and stole food, and hid his mother in a secret attic to avoid being captured in Nazi raids and shipped off to the killing camps in the Polish countryside. A Gestapo deception finally pushed them onto a stifling, filth-ridden cattle car, on a ride to a place whose name has come to symbolize the worst of Auschwitz. As others around him succumbed to the gas chambers, beatings, starvation and disease, Henry Oster somehow found the strength to stay alive. He and 130 other boys were assigned to work in the Auschwitz stables, breeding horses for the Russian invasion of the German war effort. He was put in charge of Barbarossa, a magnificent stallion, and was forced to help in the violent process of breeding Barbarossa with the mares. He survived selections for the gas chambers, a firing squad, a death march through the killing Polish winter, a strafing attack by Allied fighter-bombers and the last murderous throes of the Nazi Reich. As the Allied armies closed in on Berlin Henry was finally liberated, on the razor's edge of starvation, from the Buchenwald concentration camp by General George Patton's 3rd Army, among them sobbing African-American soldiers who understood the prejudice and injustice he had suffered for so many years. He was liberated alongside fellow teenager Elie Wiesel, author of the compelling, best-selling novel, Night, and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize. Of the 2,011 Jews who were rounded up by the Gestapo and deported from Cologne, Henry Oster is the only person still alive to tell their story. He was one of only 19 German-speaking Jewish boys to emerge alive from the concentration camps after the war. Oster's struggles did not stop with his escape from the Nazis' persecution. After coming of age as a free young man in Paris he made his way to Los Angeles, arriving with no money, no English and no education. By pumping gas and fixing cars after school he worked his way through high school and UCLA, and became an influential and respected Professor of Optometry. At the age of 85 he was still seeing patients, helping the world to see. In 2011 Henry made a moving and triumphant return to Cologne, where he spoke before the Mayor, city officials, diplomats and Holocaust historians, and visited the Gunter Demnig art project of sidewalk plaques—"stumbling stones"—that memorialize his mother and father. Now, at the age of 87, Henry Oster is just as vibrant and determined as ever to tell the story of one of the last few survivors of the Nazi death camps, and to caution students and audiences all over the world about the racism, fascism and politics of fear that gave rise to the Nazi nightmanre, and which are still alive and well in otherwise civilized societies today.
216 pages, Hardcover
First published February 16, 2015
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607 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews
February 18, 2020
Full disclosure: I had the opportunity to meet Dr. Oster (He wouldn't like me calling him by his formal title, but I can't help it), on two occasions before his death last year.
The first time was when he spoke to my friend and colleague's class and took questions about the book. The second was when he and his coauthor, Dexter Ford, were kind enough to visit my class and take my students' questions.
The banter between Dexter and Henry was hilarious; they were like father and son, gently nudging and ribbing each other and telling heartwarming stories about their time together working on the book.
I was honored to have had the opportunity to share space with him for those few short hours.
Henry was an extraordinary man who embodied the kind of strength and courage I strive every day to emulate.
As for the book, it goes without saying that Kindness of the Hangman is a very, very, very difficult book to get through.
Not a single documentary, film, history book chapter, or article I’ve consumed comes close to capturing the horror that was the Holocaust in the way that Henry and Dexter have done.
I’ll conclude this review with Henry’s own words, as mine are insufficient for explaining what readers can expect.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dU7q0...
The first time was when he spoke to my friend and colleague's class and took questions about the book. The second was when he and his coauthor, Dexter Ford, were kind enough to visit my class and take my students' questions.
The banter between Dexter and Henry was hilarious; they were like father and son, gently nudging and ribbing each other and telling heartwarming stories about their time together working on the book.
I was honored to have had the opportunity to share space with him for those few short hours.
Henry was an extraordinary man who embodied the kind of strength and courage I strive every day to emulate.
As for the book, it goes without saying that Kindness of the Hangman is a very, very, very difficult book to get through.
Not a single documentary, film, history book chapter, or article I’ve consumed comes close to capturing the horror that was the Holocaust in the way that Henry and Dexter have done.
I’ll conclude this review with Henry’s own words, as mine are insufficient for explaining what readers can expect.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dU7q0...
May 11, 2015
An extraordinary story. An extraordinary man. I was lucky enough to meet him and hear his story in person.
September 8, 2016
I don't know exactly what I was expecting when I picked this up. A harrowing and difficult read perhaps, a reminder of the atrocities humans are capable of when they dehumanise each other (rather topical at the moment).
What I got was a gripping story that took me through a rollercoaster of feelings, as Henry Oster fights to survive a closing net of Nazi persecution and enslavement and death.
This is a surprisingly readable and compelling read about a remarkable person. Obviously the ending is "happy" for Henry, in that he survived to tell the story. He doesn't shy away from the reality of what happened, but it's factual not gratuitous. It's still horrifying, but like a horror film, you just can't look away, even as things get worse and worse and worse. Then I cheered and cried as the smallest things went well for Henry, then bawled when they went really well, and he succeeded and lived.
I highly recommend this book. But clearly that recommendation comes with literally every single trigger warning. All of them. But if you can face reading it, this would make a really good book group pick, or required reading for young people studying history.
What I got was a gripping story that took me through a rollercoaster of feelings, as Henry Oster fights to survive a closing net of Nazi persecution and enslavement and death.
This is a surprisingly readable and compelling read about a remarkable person. Obviously the ending is "happy" for Henry, in that he survived to tell the story. He doesn't shy away from the reality of what happened, but it's factual not gratuitous. It's still horrifying, but like a horror film, you just can't look away, even as things get worse and worse and worse. Then I cheered and cried as the smallest things went well for Henry, then bawled when they went really well, and he succeeded and lived.
I highly recommend this book. But clearly that recommendation comes with literally every single trigger warning. All of them. But if you can face reading it, this would make a really good book group pick, or required reading for young people studying history.
August 6, 2018
Those who understand history can see when the past is becoming our present. We must know what went wrong in the past and choose to take a different path to avoid making the same tragic mistakes. This book lays out so clearly the prejudice of the past, the way leaders lead so many to see “them” as different from”us”. We can avoid the same pitfalls if we just listen. Powerful well told history of the life of a Germany Jew during World War II.
July 7, 2021
Obviously not an easy read but an important one nonetheless.
…"the only way for humanity to prevent a horror like the Holocaust from ever happening again is to force ourselves to look, with unblinking eyes, at exactly what happened, and to understand how the unthinkable, the unimaginable, ever came to pass. If we look away, if we as a species allow ourselves to take the easy way out, to let ourselves forget and let the lessons of the past fade away, we are doomed to repeat them."
…"the only way for humanity to prevent a horror like the Holocaust from ever happening again is to force ourselves to look, with unblinking eyes, at exactly what happened, and to understand how the unthinkable, the unimaginable, ever came to pass. If we look away, if we as a species allow ourselves to take the easy way out, to let ourselves forget and let the lessons of the past fade away, we are doomed to repeat them."
August 31, 2017
What happened during the holocaust was just something I heard from people or short documentary on YouTube, but never ever heard it straight from a survival. Coming from a country that went through genocide ourselves in 1975 (Khmer Rouge Regime in Cambodia) it is still a hard facts to accept that humans are capable of creating such massive atrocity: the murder of innocence people that commit nothing wrong but to be born a Jew or the process of brainwashing innocent civilians into following a communist regime (Khmer rouge).
What really get me hook to the book is Henry's ability capture the whole story in a storytelling manner; just like how my grandfather would tell me about the Khmer Rouge with all grandchildren surrounding him, slowly getting sucked in the story -- absorbing each and every single word.
Heart-touching, nostalgic book
What really get me hook to the book is Henry's ability capture the whole story in a storytelling manner; just like how my grandfather would tell me about the Khmer Rouge with all grandchildren surrounding him, slowly getting sucked in the story -- absorbing each and every single word.
Heart-touching, nostalgic book
October 15, 2017
I was inspired to read this book after watching a video interview Henry did that was published on Facebook. He speaks so simply, and truthfully about these unimaginable horrors. His book is just as good as his public speaking. This is a well researched book that will give you detailed historical information about these unimaginable events (some aspects I wasn't even aware of even after the numerous interviews, documentaries, and books I'd encountered previously to reading Oster's story), and a very awe-inspiring, gut wrenching, first hand account of his own story of survival through WWII and the Holocaust.
Please read this book, please encourage your friends and family to read this book and to keep passing it on, to keep the stories of these survivors alive for generations to come.
Please read this book, please encourage your friends and family to read this book and to keep passing it on, to keep the stories of these survivors alive for generations to come.
August 30, 2018
A must read for all.
Thank you so much for writing this book. It is written well, and really provoked an emotional connection for me as I am continuing to search for my great grandmother who was killed by the Nazi's. I am sure that there were many people who could not share, because they wanted to put it behind them. So your horrific experience will help others that we should never forget. It pains me to know what you went through, and I am proud that you were able to overcome the atrocities committed and tell your story. I would highly recommend this book to be read by as many people as possible
Thank you so much for writing this book. It is written well, and really provoked an emotional connection for me as I am continuing to search for my great grandmother who was killed by the Nazi's. I am sure that there were many people who could not share, because they wanted to put it behind them. So your horrific experience will help others that we should never forget. It pains me to know what you went through, and I am proud that you were able to overcome the atrocities committed and tell your story. I would highly recommend this book to be read by as many people as possible
September 19, 2017
Riveting!!
I've read many books detailing the atrocities of the Holocaust but none has affected me as much as these in this book. It evoked such emotion in me that I had trouble articulating it to my family, however much I tried. It never occurred to me how the boys' manhood/puberty would be affected, and that once they began to be fed regularly their bodies began to mature. Dr. Oster is a hero in my estimation. He could have wallowed in self pity or nursed his loathing for his captors but he became a success! Bravo, Dr. Oster!!
I've read many books detailing the atrocities of the Holocaust but none has affected me as much as these in this book. It evoked such emotion in me that I had trouble articulating it to my family, however much I tried. It never occurred to me how the boys' manhood/puberty would be affected, and that once they began to be fed regularly their bodies began to mature. Dr. Oster is a hero in my estimation. He could have wallowed in self pity or nursed his loathing for his captors but he became a success! Bravo, Dr. Oster!!
June 28, 2018
An Incredible Story
An incredible story of a boy who managed to survive the unsurvivable. An amazing story of triumph told in a very readable fashion. I have read a lot of books in this genre and learned several new things I hadn’t read elsewhere. Once I started reading, I couldn’t put this down.
An incredible story of a boy who managed to survive the unsurvivable. An amazing story of triumph told in a very readable fashion. I have read a lot of books in this genre and learned several new things I hadn’t read elsewhere. Once I started reading, I couldn’t put this down.
July 5, 2018
Brought me to tears
A first person narrative that captured all of the misery and despair that the author went through. I would recommend it to younger readers who have no personal relationships with anyone who was connected to the Second World War. My father was an army medic who helped in the liberation of some concentration camps. The world should never forget.
A first person narrative that captured all of the misery and despair that the author went through. I would recommend it to younger readers who have no personal relationships with anyone who was connected to the Second World War. My father was an army medic who helped in the liberation of some concentration camps. The world should never forget.
July 12, 2017
This is an incredible, but heartbreaking book that I had trouble putting down. I think everyone should read it.
October 25, 2018
Gripping true story eloquently told by Holocaust survivor Henry Oster. Amid years of horror, he describes brief moments of magic and hope.
July 26, 2020
Incredible. Rest peacefully, Henry.
August 14, 2025
This is a gripping and heartbreaking depiction of Henry Oster (Heinz Oster) and his grueling battle to survive the disgusting acts of his time in Nazi imprisonment.
His story details his life with his parents before Hitler took power, to the years of horror that’s started for him at only 12 years old, then…not a moment too soon, liberation and triumph.
I am so glad that I read Henry’s story. I am in awe at his strength and will to live.
His story details his life with his parents before Hitler took power, to the years of horror that’s started for him at only 12 years old, then…not a moment too soon, liberation and triumph.
I am so glad that I read Henry’s story. I am in awe at his strength and will to live.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 21, 2022
The cruelty man can impose on other man is barely believable. Five + years in a Jewish ghetto and in concentration camps. How to hang on to a shred of hope over all those days, months and years is a test almost beyond comprehension. I thank the author for living through this experience again by writing about it.
October 25, 2020
I picked up a signed copy of this book in LA a few years ago and pulled it off my shelf this week. A well written account, that should be added to your reading list for holocausts memories. I could not recommend this book more! At only 212 pagers I would recommend for all teens to read.
November 6, 2017
SO GOOD I want more books like this!
March 13, 2018
I was very moved by this book, but I could not get past the many grammatical errors and uninteresting/cliched language.
September 6, 2020
For such a horrible topic, this is such a great book. An amazing story of craftiness and the will to live.
March 12, 2022
Powerful memoir of a Holocaust survivor.
January 25, 2025
What a wonderful book.
December 6, 2024
This is literally the same book as "The Stable Boy of Auschwitz" by Henry Foster just a different title. Disappointing to find this out.
February 28, 2018
Everyone should know the stories of Holocaust survivors and the unimaginable horrors they endured. NEVER AGAIN.
Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews