Survivors Club ─ The True Story of a Very Young Prisoner of Auschwitz

In 1945, in a now-famous piece of archival footage, four-year-old Michael Bornstein was filmed by Soviet soldiers as he was carried out of Auschwitz in his grandmother’s arms. Here is 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 time and again with incredible deftness. Working from his own recollections as well as extensive interviews with other family members and survivors who knew the family, Michael relates his inspirational 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.

Michael Bornstein survived for seven months inside Auschwitz, where the average lifespan of a child was just two weeks. After the war, Michael reunited with his mother, who had been deported to an Austrian labor camp. Together, they immigrated to New York City in 1951. Michael earned his Ph.D. and worked in pharmaceutical research and development for more than forty years. Now retired, Michael lives with his wife in New York City and and speaks frequently to schools and other groups about his experiences in the Holocaust.

Debbie Bornstein Holinstat is Michael’s third of four children. A producer for NBC and MSNBC News, she lives in North Caldwell, New Jersey. She also visits schools with her father, and has been working with him for two years, helping him research and write this memoir, although she has grown up hearing many of these stories her entire life.