Dan Porat - The Boy A Holocaust Story

A cobblestone road. A sunny day. A soldier. A gun. A child, arms high in the air. A moment captured on film. But what is the history behind arguably the most recognizable photograph of the Holocaust? In The Boy: A Holocaust Story, the historian Dan Porat unpacks this split second that was immortalized on film and unravels the stories of the individuals--both Jews and Nazis--associated with it.

The Boy presents the stories of three Nazi criminals, ranging in status from SS sergeant to low-ranking SS officer to SS general. It is also the story of two Jewish victims, a teenage girl and a young boy, who encounter these Nazis in Warsaw in the spring of 1943. Vivid photographs interspersed throughout help narrate these five lives. And, in keeping with the emotional immediacy of the images, Porat uses a narrative style that, drawing upon extensive research , experience, and oral interviews, places the reader in the middle of unfolding events.