About this item
A New York Times bestseller"Both moving and memorable, combining the emotional resolve of a memoir with the rhythm of a novel." -- New York Times Book ReviewIn 1945, in a now-famous piece of World War II archival footage, four-year-old Michael Bornstein was filmed by Soviet soldiers as he was carried out of Auschwitz in his grandmother's arms. Survivors Club tells the unforgettable story of how a father's courageous wit, a mother's fierce love, and one perfectly timed illness saved his life, and how others in his family from Zarki, Poland, dodged death at the hands of the Nazis time and again with incredible deftness. Working from his own recollections as well as extensive interviews with relatives and survivors who knew the family, Michael relates his inspirational Holocaust survival story with the help of his daughter, Debbie Bornstein Holinstat. Shocking, heartbreaking, and ultimately uplifting, this narrative nonfiction offers an indelible depiction of what happened to one Polish village in the wake of the German invasion in 1939.This thoroughly-researched and documented book can be worked into multiple aspects of the common core curriculum.
About the Author
Michael is one of the youngest survivors of the Auschwitz death camp. At the age of four, he managed to stay hidden and evade murder in the most notorious death camp in world history. Photos of Michael being liberated by Soviet soldiers at the camp have been spotted on museum walls, book covers and film clips around the world and yet he waited more than seventy years to step forward and share his story in the New York Times Bestselling Book, Survivors Club: The True Story of a Very Young Prisoner of Auschwitz. He co-wrote Survivors Club alongside his third of four children, Debbie, who is a broadcast news journalist and a writer. Along the way, he and his family were stunned to uncover shocking new details about his survival that included a bribery scheme, untold acts of kindness by a German leader, and one perfectly-timed brush with illness.Michael is a graduate of Fordham University in New York and holds a Ph.D. in Pharmaceutics and Analytical Chemistry from the University of Iowa. That's where Mike met his wife of nearly fifty years, Judy. Together, they have raised four children and welcomed eleven grandchildren to their ever-growing family. Michael is now retired after working for more than four decades as a scientist and researcher in a career that took him from Dow Chemical and Eli Lilly & Co. in Indianapolis to Biotech divisions of Johnson & Johnson in New Jersey. He rose to the rank of director of technical operations and focused the majority of his work on helping to develop life-saving antibiotics, growth hormone and cancer treatments.In addition to occasional pharmaceutical consulting work, Michael now spends much of his time shuttling between New York and New Jersey alongside his wife as they visit grandkids' science fairs, dance recitals and soccer games. He also speaks regularly at schools, synagogues and business institutions, sharing his experiences as a survivor of the Holocaust.
