Giants: The Dwarfs of Auschwitz

Description

Giants is a moving and inspirational story of survival, of a troupe of seven dwarf siblings, whose story starts like a fairy tale, before moving into the darkest moments of their history; the darkest moments of modern history. At a time when the phrase 'survival of the fittest' was paramount, the Ovitz family, seven of whose ten members were dwarfs, defied the fate of so many other Holocaust victims. The irony was that, doubly doomed for being Jewish and disabled, it was their dwarfism that ultimately saved their lives. Descending from the cattle train into the death camp of Auschwitz, the Ovitz family was separated from other Jewish victims on the orders of one Dr Joseph Mengele. Obsessed with eugenics, Dr. Mengele experimented on the family, aiming to discover the biological and pathological causes of the birth of dwarfs. Like a single-minded scientist, he guarded his human lab-rats, and subsequently, when the Russian army liberated Auschwitz, all members of the family - the youngest, a baby boy just 18 months-old, the oldest, a 58 year-old woman - were alive. It was the only family that entered the death camp and lived to tell the tale.The family eventually restructured their lives and became successful performers once again, but the indelible mark of their experiences was carried with them until the end.

Yehuda Koren and Eilat Negev are respected writers and journalists. Their books include The First Lady of Fleet Street and Lover of Unreason: The Life and Tragic Death of Assia Wevill.

"An astonishing story: both wretchedly sad and oddly uplifting - Giants can scarcely fail to stay with you." Mail on Sunday '[An] amazing story sympathetically and eloquently told ... The authors show great respect and affection for the Ovitzes ... Theirs was a life worth living and a story very worth telling.' New York Review of Books "Their remarkable story, extensively researched, is so beautifully and sympathetically written that it fully deserves to appeal far beyond its core audience." BBC History Magazine