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Biography & Autobiography. History. Judaica. Nonfiction. HTML: "Brilliantly written, vivid, a powerful and often uncomfortable true story that deserves to be read and remembered. It beautifully captures the strength of the bond between a father and son."�??Heather Morris, author of #1 New York Times bestseller The Tattooist of Auschwitz The #1 Sunday Times bestseller�??a remarkable story of the heroic and unbreakable bond between a father and son that is as inspirational as The Tattooist of Auschwitz and as mesmerizing as The Choice. Where there is family, there is hope In 1939, Gustav Kleinmann, a Jewish upholster from Vienna, and his sixteen-year-old son Fritz are arrested by the Gestapo and sent to Germany. Imprisoned in the Buchenwald concentration camp, they miraculously survive the Nazis' murderous brutality. Then Gustav learns he is being sent to Auschwitz�??and certain death. For Fritz, letting his father go is unthinkable. Desperate to remain together, Fritz makes an incredible choice: he insists he must go too. To the Nazis, one death camp is the same as another, and so the boy is allowed to follow. Throughout the six years of horror they witness and immeasurable suffering they endure as victims of the camps, one constant keeps them alive: their love and hope for the future. Based on the secret diary that Gustav kept as well as meticulous archival research and interviews with members of the Kleinmann family, including Fritz's younger brother Kurt, sent to the United States at age eleven to escape the war, The Boy Who Followed His Father into Auschwitz is Gustav and Fritz's story�??an extraordinary account of courage, loyalty, survival, and love that is unforge… (more)
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Gustav and Fritz spent nearly 6 years in multiple concentration camps as slave labor to the nazi machine of war. Together with their wits and much love.they were able to support each other despite back-breaking work, beatings, starvation, cold, and disease. Gustav kept a small notebook of significant events and his feelings which would years later become the foundation of The Boy Who Followed His Father into Auschwitz.
Reading about Gustav's naive optimism, and the fact that father and son were able to remain together for so long is captivating. Book should be read to learn how this one family fared.