Hardback: One of the last great untold stories of the Holocaust, The Survivor (2023) is an astonishing account of one man's unbreakable spirit, unshakeable faith, and extraordinary courage in the face of evil.
At only sixteen 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 Kraków-Plaszów concentration camp, the domain of the psychotic Amon Göth, whose swift, random brutality was immortalized by Ralph Fiennes in Schindler's List.
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.
When he was liberated from Ebensee at the end of the war, Josef discovered that he was the only member of his extended family to have survived the Nazi killing machine. Compelled by the need to avenge that loss, with the backing of the US army, he formed a taskforce to hunt Nazis in hiding, rounding up the SS officers at whose hands he and his community had suffered. It was Josef who discovered Göth, his greatest tormentor, masquerading as a Wehrmacht soldier, and helped to bring him to justice.
Having dedicated his life to honouring the victims of the Holocaust, The Survivor is Josef's extraordinary testimony.
About the authors: Before the invasion of his hometown, Josef Lewkowicz lived with his family in Działoszyce, near Kraków in Poland. After the invasion, he spent three years in six different concentration camps before travelling around Austria and Germany as an intelligence officer searching for Nazis in hiding. Josef is now ninety-six and living in Jerusalem, after working as a diamond dealer in South America.
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.
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