The Boys: The Story of 732 Young Concentration Camp Survivors

Auschwitz, Treblinka, and other Nazi death camps were places of death--not only of the body, but also of the spirit, for the German captors sought to rob their prisoners of their very humanity through routine torture and terrorism. Only a fraction of those who entered the camps survived to bear witness to that brutal regime. Martin Gilbert, the distinguished English historian, gathers the testimonials of 732 men who spent their early teens in the camps. Most have dedicated themselves to good works, he writes, organizing humanitarian relief efforts in Israel and elsewhere, for instance, and otherwise pledging themselves to noble causes. This is an important contribution to the literature of the Holocaust--and to the possibilities of the human soul. --Gregory McNamee