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The Boys: The Story of 732 Young Concentration Camp Survivors
Fewer than 100,000 Jews survived the death camps. This is the story of 732 of those Jews--all under the age of sixteen in 1945. It is the story of what they lost, of what they, as children, suffered, and, most of all, of what they overcame. Robbed of their childhoods, orphaned by violence and bestiality, they ought to have become sociopaths. Instead, they rebuilt their lives and dedicated them to the memory of those who were not as lucky. Told in their voices, The Boys bears witness to the power of the human spirit.
528 pages, Paperback
First published April 15, 1997
20 people are currently reading
686 people want to read
About the author
Martin Gilbert
249 books417 followersThe official biographer of Winston Churchill and a leading historian on the Twentieth Century, Sir Martin Gilbert was a scholar and an historian who, though his 88 books, has shown there is such a thing as “true history”
Born in London in 1936, Martin Gilbert was educated at Highgate School, and Magdalen College, Oxford, graduating with First Class Honours. He was a Research Scholar at St Anthony's College, and became a Fellow of Merton College, Oxford in 1962, and an Honorary Fellow in 1994. After working as a researcher for Randolph Churchill, Gilbert was chosen to take over the writing of the Churchill biography upon Randolph's death in 1968, writing six of the eight volumes of biography and editing twelve volumes of documents. In addition, Gilbert has written pioneering and classic works on the First and Second World Wars, the Twentieth Century, the Holocaust, and Jewish history.
Gilbert drove every aspect of his books, from finding archives to corresponding with eyewitnesses and participants that gave his work veracity and meaning, to finding and choosing illustrations, drawing maps that mention each place in the text, and compiling the indexes. He travelled widely lecturing and researching, advised political figures and filmmakers, and gave a voice and a name “to those who fought and those who fell.”
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Born in London in 1936, Martin Gilbert was educated at Highgate School, and Magdalen College, Oxford, graduating with First Class Honours. He was a Research Scholar at St Anthony's College, and became a Fellow of Merton College, Oxford in 1962, and an Honorary Fellow in 1994. After working as a researcher for Randolph Churchill, Gilbert was chosen to take over the writing of the Churchill biography upon Randolph's death in 1968, writing six of the eight volumes of biography and editing twelve volumes of documents. In addition, Gilbert has written pioneering and classic works on the First and Second World Wars, the Twentieth Century, the Holocaust, and Jewish history.
Gilbert drove every aspect of his books, from finding archives to corresponding with eyewitnesses and participants that gave his work veracity and meaning, to finding and choosing illustrations, drawing maps that mention each place in the text, and compiling the indexes. He travelled widely lecturing and researching, advised political figures and filmmakers, and gave a voice and a name “to those who fought and those who fell.”
https://twitter.com/sirmartin36
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Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews
August 22, 2022
This remarkable book consists of the comprehensive results interviews with and letters by 732 concentration camp survivors from the Holocaust.
These young people-both boys and girls-where settled in Britain after World War II , some stayed and made lives in Britain , while others immigrated to the USA , Australia , Canada and Israel.
Some of the boys made their mark in the Israel War of Independence defending the fledgling Jewish State after it was attacked by five Arab armies , aiming to annihilate all Jews in Israel (as the Arabs and anti-Zionists of the world aim for today i.e a second Holocaust.)
Part of the book consists of harrowing eyewitness accounts of the survivors , hence an important testament to holocaust remembrance. The accounts are often graphic and bring the grim reality of what happened to the Jewish people during world War II to bear on us.
It is important to remember the holocaust again , at times when some , like Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei , David Irving and others , deny it's existence.
It is important to remember the holocaust , at a time when the Islamic world and their far-left allies wish to destroy Israel , the phoenix that arose from the ashes of the Jewish people , and subject the Jews of Israel to a second holocaust.
It is interesting to see how for most of the survivors Israel and Zionism where an important part of their consciousness.
Anti-Zionist propaganda aims to prepare for genocide of Jews , in the same way as Nazi propaganda did , and therefore all Anti-Zionist and anti-Israel propaganda should be treated the same as Nazism-with no tolerance.
Most holocaust survivors and their descendants today live in Israel.
The future of the descendants of the survivors needs to be preserved , and therefore Israel must prevail.
That is what we must fight for when we say 'Never Again!'
These young people-both boys and girls-where settled in Britain after World War II , some stayed and made lives in Britain , while others immigrated to the USA , Australia , Canada and Israel.
Some of the boys made their mark in the Israel War of Independence defending the fledgling Jewish State after it was attacked by five Arab armies , aiming to annihilate all Jews in Israel (as the Arabs and anti-Zionists of the world aim for today i.e a second Holocaust.)
Part of the book consists of harrowing eyewitness accounts of the survivors , hence an important testament to holocaust remembrance. The accounts are often graphic and bring the grim reality of what happened to the Jewish people during world War II to bear on us.
It is important to remember the holocaust again , at times when some , like Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei , David Irving and others , deny it's existence.
It is important to remember the holocaust , at a time when the Islamic world and their far-left allies wish to destroy Israel , the phoenix that arose from the ashes of the Jewish people , and subject the Jews of Israel to a second holocaust.
It is interesting to see how for most of the survivors Israel and Zionism where an important part of their consciousness.
Anti-Zionist propaganda aims to prepare for genocide of Jews , in the same way as Nazi propaganda did , and therefore all Anti-Zionist and anti-Israel propaganda should be treated the same as Nazism-with no tolerance.
Most holocaust survivors and their descendants today live in Israel.
The future of the descendants of the survivors needs to be preserved , and therefore Israel must prevail.
That is what we must fight for when we say 'Never Again!'
October 28, 2019
A few weeks ago in early February (2015), I was idly reading the obituary pages of The Globe and Mail newspaper. The back page of the obits is saved for people who achieved some fame in their lives, and that week I was struck by the headline: Martin Gilbert, Churchill's Official Biographer, Dies at Age 79.
I grew up in a British family, my parents, uncles and aunts were all involved in the Second World War in England in some way, even as young teenagers. As a result, I've always been fairly informed about WWII and a fan of Churchill. So I read on, to discover that Martin Gilbert had written 84 books (!) on the Second World War, the Holocaust, Jewish history and much, much more. He was considered one of the world's leading historians of the last century, he spent part of his childhood in Toronto to escape war-torn Europe, and I had never heard of him. So, that day I ordered a few of his books from the library, and I have just now finished The Boys. It took me three weeks to read, not because I'm a slow reader, but because I had to take the book in small chunks. It is the single most difficult book I have ever read, and I have read A LOT. I had to keep putting it down to absorb what I'd just read.
In first person accounts, the book tells the Holocaust survival story of 732 Jewish children, all of them orphaned mostly at the gates of Auschwitz, Chelmno and Treblinka or in the concentration camps. The children survived the war, and after liberation in 1945 were selected to fly to England for a slow journey back to health and social integration. Their amazing survival is due to luck, stamina, bravery, youth and something else, let's say the whim of fate. Fifty years later as adult survivors, through letters and private testimonials, each of them describe how they survived the ghettos, concentration camps, forced slavery, starvation, beatings, terror and the final atrocity of the death marches of Nazi Germany. Martin Gilbert solicited these letters from the 732, and carefully parses them to recreate a slow unfolding of the Holocaust from a child's perspective.
Most of the children were between 12 and 18 at the end of war, since younger children were almost universally murdered along with their mothers (one nurse in England at the end of the book poignantly says that they were expecting small children at the rehabilitation centre in Southhampton and so had purchased teddy bears for them, but no small children arrived because they had all been murdered). Most of the survivors are boys (hence the title), since the girl survivors, like the small children, were pitifully few in number.
Except in a very few places where Mr. Gilbert provides context, the book marches along, with page after page of first-person testimonial accounts of survival. Because the book is over 400 pages long, in reading it one begins to grasp the enormity and relentless nature of the horror, the grinding truth of the Nazi's attempt to exterminate a race of people. The children's stories all become a testament as they reinforce each other, again and again and again, the details of each moment of suffering building to a final very clear picture. It's exhausting, terrifying, brutal reading, but by the end you have an unerring sense of what these children survived, the truth of the day-to-day reality of slave life in Nazi Germany.
Gilbert points out at the beginning of the book that in every single case without exception, each survivor had at least one miraculous event occur that helped to save them, but most had a series of miracles. A few examples: one survivor stepped out of a church to collect water at the very moment that all the people inside were mowed down by machine gun fire (ghetto story). Several told of being lined up against a wall to be shot, and were only saved because the German soldier's gun jammed. Others miraculously found food (however rotten or degraded) at the brink of death, or snuck from a line meant for extermination into a different line for the living when the German guards weren't looking. And on and on. It became clear to me that children who survived were not the shy, retiring type: they fought for food along with the adults, or survived beatings just like the adults, or somehow made the very adult and conscious decision not to lose the will to live. For that, you had to be strong, smart, assertive and brave.
Along with miracles, every child survivor in the book perfectly described the final moment of seeing their loved ones, as they went one way in line to death at Auschwitz, or were shot, or dragged away or driven off in a truck. That moment of separation was described in detail again and again.
I'll leave you with this poignant moment: Ben Helfgott was 15 in the final weeks of the war. Standing in his prisoner's rags in a freezing, open air train car shoulder to shoulder with dozens of other boys, his train shunted under a bridge and stopped. Seconds later an American bomber flew low overhead for a bombing run, then pulled up at the moment that the pilot made eye contact with Ben and saw that the train below the bridge was full of children. The Nazis used the children as human shields. The US pilot didn't bomb the bridge and Ben survived.
My son just turned 17, and so I had him in mind at every turn, which made the book even harder for me to read: would my boy have survived? Not one of the 732 survivors had a living mother at the end of the war, by the way, although a few did find some surviving relatives after the dust settled later in the 1940s.
A gut-wrenching read, I'm glad I did make it to the end of this book. It's not brilliantly written (although it is well organized), but it is startling and honest and it's the truth. If you are interested in history, in the Holocaust, and in learning first-hand how a handful of children truly beat the odds and won out over unimaginable cruelty, add it to your must-read list and be prepared to read it slowly. Also, as an interesting companion piece, consider reading Elie Weisel's Nobel Prize-winning memoir Night, a very short book which describes his Holocaust/Auschwitz survival story as a 16-year-old.
Also, here is my review of Martin Gilbert's, The Righteous, accounts of the everyday Europeans who hid, and saved people from the Holocaust: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
I grew up in a British family, my parents, uncles and aunts were all involved in the Second World War in England in some way, even as young teenagers. As a result, I've always been fairly informed about WWII and a fan of Churchill. So I read on, to discover that Martin Gilbert had written 84 books (!) on the Second World War, the Holocaust, Jewish history and much, much more. He was considered one of the world's leading historians of the last century, he spent part of his childhood in Toronto to escape war-torn Europe, and I had never heard of him. So, that day I ordered a few of his books from the library, and I have just now finished The Boys. It took me three weeks to read, not because I'm a slow reader, but because I had to take the book in small chunks. It is the single most difficult book I have ever read, and I have read A LOT. I had to keep putting it down to absorb what I'd just read.
In first person accounts, the book tells the Holocaust survival story of 732 Jewish children, all of them orphaned mostly at the gates of Auschwitz, Chelmno and Treblinka or in the concentration camps. The children survived the war, and after liberation in 1945 were selected to fly to England for a slow journey back to health and social integration. Their amazing survival is due to luck, stamina, bravery, youth and something else, let's say the whim of fate. Fifty years later as adult survivors, through letters and private testimonials, each of them describe how they survived the ghettos, concentration camps, forced slavery, starvation, beatings, terror and the final atrocity of the death marches of Nazi Germany. Martin Gilbert solicited these letters from the 732, and carefully parses them to recreate a slow unfolding of the Holocaust from a child's perspective.
Most of the children were between 12 and 18 at the end of war, since younger children were almost universally murdered along with their mothers (one nurse in England at the end of the book poignantly says that they were expecting small children at the rehabilitation centre in Southhampton and so had purchased teddy bears for them, but no small children arrived because they had all been murdered). Most of the survivors are boys (hence the title), since the girl survivors, like the small children, were pitifully few in number.
Except in a very few places where Mr. Gilbert provides context, the book marches along, with page after page of first-person testimonial accounts of survival. Because the book is over 400 pages long, in reading it one begins to grasp the enormity and relentless nature of the horror, the grinding truth of the Nazi's attempt to exterminate a race of people. The children's stories all become a testament as they reinforce each other, again and again and again, the details of each moment of suffering building to a final very clear picture. It's exhausting, terrifying, brutal reading, but by the end you have an unerring sense of what these children survived, the truth of the day-to-day reality of slave life in Nazi Germany.
Gilbert points out at the beginning of the book that in every single case without exception, each survivor had at least one miraculous event occur that helped to save them, but most had a series of miracles. A few examples: one survivor stepped out of a church to collect water at the very moment that all the people inside were mowed down by machine gun fire (ghetto story). Several told of being lined up against a wall to be shot, and were only saved because the German soldier's gun jammed. Others miraculously found food (however rotten or degraded) at the brink of death, or snuck from a line meant for extermination into a different line for the living when the German guards weren't looking. And on and on. It became clear to me that children who survived were not the shy, retiring type: they fought for food along with the adults, or survived beatings just like the adults, or somehow made the very adult and conscious decision not to lose the will to live. For that, you had to be strong, smart, assertive and brave.
Along with miracles, every child survivor in the book perfectly described the final moment of seeing their loved ones, as they went one way in line to death at Auschwitz, or were shot, or dragged away or driven off in a truck. That moment of separation was described in detail again and again.
I'll leave you with this poignant moment: Ben Helfgott was 15 in the final weeks of the war. Standing in his prisoner's rags in a freezing, open air train car shoulder to shoulder with dozens of other boys, his train shunted under a bridge and stopped. Seconds later an American bomber flew low overhead for a bombing run, then pulled up at the moment that the pilot made eye contact with Ben and saw that the train below the bridge was full of children. The Nazis used the children as human shields. The US pilot didn't bomb the bridge and Ben survived.
My son just turned 17, and so I had him in mind at every turn, which made the book even harder for me to read: would my boy have survived? Not one of the 732 survivors had a living mother at the end of the war, by the way, although a few did find some surviving relatives after the dust settled later in the 1940s.
A gut-wrenching read, I'm glad I did make it to the end of this book. It's not brilliantly written (although it is well organized), but it is startling and honest and it's the truth. If you are interested in history, in the Holocaust, and in learning first-hand how a handful of children truly beat the odds and won out over unimaginable cruelty, add it to your must-read list and be prepared to read it slowly. Also, as an interesting companion piece, consider reading Elie Weisel's Nobel Prize-winning memoir Night, a very short book which describes his Holocaust/Auschwitz survival story as a 16-year-old.
Also, here is my review of Martin Gilbert's, The Righteous, accounts of the everyday Europeans who hid, and saved people from the Holocaust: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
July 19, 2016
This is a story that should be told and remembered - the story of the few children/teenagers who survived Hitler's forced labor and concentration/extermination camps. It starts with the incredibly rich life that was the pre-war European Jewish community, continues thru the break-up and total annihilation of those communities - many of which no longer have a single Jew living in them, or in some cases even exist - then chronicles "the boys" and their families as they survive first the war and then their post-war transport to England and subsequent recovery. These are brutal, horrific stories, told in such a matter-of-fact way that they become even more powerful.
It's not that they're heroes exactly. It's more like, after being in the wrong place at the wrong time, they managed first to be lucky enough to physically survive, and second to be strong enough emotionally to refuse to allow their experiences to destroy them. Surprisingly tho of course their feelings about the Nazis are self-evident, they draw contrasts between the Nazis and Germans in general.
So it's a book you should read, so you can understand better what happened, and so their story isn't forgotten. But it isn't going to be a book you read quickly. Nor is it a book you will enjoy.
It's not that they're heroes exactly. It's more like, after being in the wrong place at the wrong time, they managed first to be lucky enough to physically survive, and second to be strong enough emotionally to refuse to allow their experiences to destroy them. Surprisingly tho of course their feelings about the Nazis are self-evident, they draw contrasts between the Nazis and Germans in general.
So it's a book you should read, so you can understand better what happened, and so their story isn't forgotten. But it isn't going to be a book you read quickly. Nor is it a book you will enjoy.
February 2, 2022
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.
central Europe, moves through ghetto, concentration camp and death march, to liberation, survival, and finally, fifty years later, a deeply moving reunion.
September 2, 2015
I first read this book when it came out in the late '90's and it has lost none of its impact. Each year there are fewer survivors left to tell their stories so it is up to us to keep those stories alive. Could this have been edited better? Probably, but hearing the survivors describe their experiences in the ghettos and camps in their own words is important as are the, admittedly rather sluggish, ending chapters that cover their lives after the holocaust. While the last few chapters might not be as compelling to read, they are the true testament to all those who have suffered through not only the atrocities of the Nazis, but of any genocide or ethnic cleansing or general horrors of war.
May 13, 2008
I started this book around Holocaust Remembrance Day here in Israel, and it has left an indelible impression. There are descriptions of life before the war, harrowing personal testimonies of the horrors of the ghettos and the concentration camps, and descriptions of how this group of 732 survivors were brought to England to recover and rebuild their lives.
Highly recommended.
Highly recommended.
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July 9, 2017It was a great loss when Martin Gilbert died. He was a premier historian of the Holocaust. I have read many of his books, all well researched and calmly presented. This book is no exception. I always learn and my understanding is deepened.
August 24, 2017
Excellent reading from memories of direct young survivors that went to England after the collapse of Germany to recover. England's home office had approved 1,000 places for children under 16 yrs of age. They were not able to find that many children, 732 however did head to England and either stayed or subsequently moved to other locations around the world. Great reading, the human side of a tragic history of humans.
April 11, 2024
One of the boys, Henry Golde, was born the same year as Anne Frank.
Henry wrote a book Ragdolls about his six years in nine locations (ghetto, concentration camps, labor camps).
Henry wrote a book Ragdolls about his six years in nine locations (ghetto, concentration camps, labor camps).
September 6, 2025
A very long and comprehensive account of 732 young concentration camp survivors.Impressively marshalled facts told quite compellingly and starkly.The whole book has a pervasive sadness as they reveal what happened to them at the hands of the Germans,Poles and in some cases the Russians.All survived by pluck but largely luck.Depressing book despite their survival.
January 28, 2022
This is an incredibly moving story of the young people who survived their attempted annihilation the concentration camps in WWII and their journeys after liberation. Moving, devastating and tremendously worth reading.
April 19, 2022
An incredible book.
February 24, 2013
An interesting read of the horrid things humans do to each other. This book is a collection of personal accounts of mainly polish survivors of the Nazi death/slave camps of Nazi Germany. The books is set chronologically with first hand accounts of 732, mostly male, individuals before and after their experiences. I found this tending more towards an archival approach, as many of the early accounts were similar. Because the book was chronological that personal narrative was broken up and woven amongst many others.
Concentric rings of influence and control were used in the operations.
Usually the Jewish camp members were controlled by their own members who were given better treatment if they kept camp members in line and ratted them out.
Of course, it didn't work out any better for them. The next level were non-Jewish polish who also ratted people out and kept those below in line. Next were known as "House Germans" who were Germans living outside Germany. Next were actual German soldiers. Surprisingly they run the whole gamut from pure administrators with some conscience and care, to those with a complete psychopathic compulsion to their actions.
Concentric rings of influence and control were used in the operations.
Usually the Jewish camp members were controlled by their own members who were given better treatment if they kept camp members in line and ratted them out.
Of course, it didn't work out any better for them. The next level were non-Jewish polish who also ratted people out and kept those below in line. Next were known as "House Germans" who were Germans living outside Germany. Next were actual German soldiers. Surprisingly they run the whole gamut from pure administrators with some conscience and care, to those with a complete psychopathic compulsion to their actions.
May 4, 2014
This was a really amazing book. It was inspiring to follow the "boys" from the nightmare of being held in concentration/labor camps and seeing their loved ones be murdered but to rise above it all. They became successful not bitter in nearly all of their cases.
They not only didn't let Hitler and the Nazis win, they triumphed over them in the end. They supported one another and became each others family. Then they "paid that forward" by creating foundations to help others. Foundations to further educations for generations to come. These men & women are strong, amazing people.
They not only didn't let Hitler and the Nazis win, they triumphed over them in the end. They supported one another and became each others family. Then they "paid that forward" by creating foundations to help others. Foundations to further educations for generations to come. These men & women are strong, amazing people.
March 1, 2009
As an historical document, this book is invaluable. It preserves the experiences and memories of ordinary people who were fated to survive the most infamous tragedy of our time. As literary history, this book is a miserable failure. Gilbert serves as an incapable, ineloquent mouthpiece for these survivors, and so their accounts, poorly constructed for all their poignance, run together in a confused mass of misery and awkward appeals to humanity. A chore to read, on several levels.
December 7, 2017
So, I'm going to say that I don't actually fully remember reading this book in the fall of 2011, but then again, there are things I don't always remember. I'm not sure if I'll decide to read this all the way through or just read sections; I haven't decided yet. It's heavy materials, for sure. I've owned this book for a long time - I went to a reading Martin Gilbert did in Washington, DC when it was published and he signed my copy.
September 12, 2009
Toward the end the book got little slow, I didn't expect almost half of the book to be about life in England. But the stories of the war time experiences of these boys, told in their own words was, both sad and riveting. I really enjoyed this book.
January 18, 2009
I loved reading these stories, but I'm not sure if everyone will. I'm really into WWII and all that went with it, so it might be a little more interesting for me. Amazing stories though!!
June 26, 2013
Incredibly moving story of courage in the midst of unspeakable hardship.
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September 8, 2018Having read plenty of these books god does not excist. No god would let children go through hell like this.
Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews