Available Formats
The Teacher of Auschwitz: Based on the inspiring true story of Fredy Hirsch
By (Author) Wendy Holden
Bonnier Books Ltd
Zaffre
7th January 2025
United Kingdom
General
Fiction
The Holocaust
Historical romance
Paperback
368
Width 153mm, Height 234mm, Spine 26mm
444g
He taught them the most important lesson of all: how to live
Fredy built a wall against suffering in their hearts...
At the dark heart of the Holocaust, there was a wooden hut whose walls were painted with cartoons; a place where children sang, staged plays and wrote poetry. Safely inside, but still in the shadow of the chimneys, they were given better food, kept free of vermin, and were even taught meditation to imagine full stomachs and a day without fear. The man who became their guiding light was a young Jewish prisoner named Fredy Hirsch.
But being a teacher in such a brutal concentration camp was no mean feat.. Whether it was begging the SS for better provisions, or hiding his homosexuality from his persecutors, he risked his life every day for one thing: to protect the children from the mortal danger they all faced.
But time is running out for Fredy and the hundreds of children in his care. Can he find a way to teach them the one lesson they really need to know: how to survive
Assiduously researched and drawn from archives and survivor testimonies, historian and biographer Wendy Holden tells the inspirational and uplifting true story of Fredy Hirsch: The Teacher of Auschwitz.
WENDY HOLDEN was a respected journalist and war correspondent for the Daily Telegraph. She is the author of more than thirty-five non-fiction titles and three novels featuring remarkable men and women, many of which are international bestsellers and several of which have been adapted for film, TV, and radio. Her books include Born Survivors, the bestselling story of three mothers who hid their pregnancies from the Nazis, now published in twenty-four countries, and the No.1 bestseller Tomorrow Will Be A Good Day, the memoir of Captain Sir Tom Moore.