The Survivor

Description

The extraordinary true story of the Holocaust survivor who endured six death camps before joining the hunt for the Nazis and bringing his tormentors to justice. One of the last great untold stories of the Holocaust, The Survivor is an astonishing account of one man's unbreakable spirit, unshakeable faith, and extraordinary courage in the face of evil. At only thirteen years old, Josef Lewkowicz became a number, prisoner 85314. Following the Nazi invasion of Poland, he and his father were separated from their family and herded to the Krak w-Plasz w concentration camp. Forced to carry out hard labour in brutal conditions, and to live under the constant threat of extreme violence and sudden death, before the war was over Josef would witness the unique horrors of six of the most notorious Nazi concentration camps, including Auschwitz, Mauthausen and Ebensee. From salt mines to forced marches, summary executions to Amstetten, where prisoners were used as human shields in Allied bombing, Josef lived under the spectre of death for many years. When he was liberated from Ebensee at the end of the war, conditions were amongst the worst witnessed by allied forces. With his freedom, Josef returned home to find that he was the only one left alive in an extended family of 150. Compelled by the need to do something to avenge that loss, he joined the Jewish police while still in a displaced persons' camp, and was recruited as an intelligence officer for the US Army who gave him a team to search for Nazis in hiding. Whilst rounding up SS leaders, he played a critical role in identifying and bringing to justice his greatest tormentor, the Butcher of Plaszow, Amon G th, played by Ralph Fiennes in Schindler's List. He then committed his life to helping the orphaned children of the Holocaust rebuild their lives. The Survivor is Josef's extraordinary testimony.

Josef Lewkowicz (Author) Before the invasion of his hometown, Josef Lewkowicz lived with his family in Dzialoszyce, near Krakow in Poland. After the invasion, he spent three years in six different concentration camps before travelling around Austria and Germany as an intelligence officer. Josef is now 96, and living in Jerusalem, after working as a diamond dealer in South America. Michael Calvin (Author) Michael Calvin is an award-winning writer and Sunday Times bestselling author, whose books have been hailed for their insight and influence. He has collaborated with such celebrated sportsmen as Sir Alastair Cook, Dylan Hartley and Gareth Thomas, and is the only writer to win the British sports book of the year award in successive years.

Josef Lewkowicz's account of his journey through six concentration camps as a teenager makes for horrific reading. But what grips the mind is his Nazi hunting and capture of the despicable Amon Goeth, followed by his determination only to do, and see, good in people. His spiritual voice emerges from a history of pain and loss with a rare and admirable clarity.' Baroness Julia Neuberger * . * A truly harrowing account, humanely told in fast-paced, affecting prose. You won't be able to put it down - even in those moments where the truth feels too hard to read. Sophy Roberts, author of The Lost Pianos of Siberia * . * Heartbreaking and inspiring. Josef Lewkowicz's journey to freedom did not end with his liberation from the Nazi death camps. He witnessed the inhumanity of men who, when given the power, can be so evil as to choose who shall live and who shall die. With captivating realism, Lewkowicz recounts reuniting hundreds of displaced and abandoned Jewish children with their families, an enormous task. If that wasn't enough, he became a Nazi hunter and helped bring some of the worst men in Jewish history to justice. This is a profound and courageous book. Maxwell Smart, author of The Boy in the Woods * . *