By Christopher Miskimon

The author was a starving teenage boy, enslaved by the Nazis and imprisoned in a concentration camp. Over the years of his captivity, he spent time in six different camps. At Plaszow, a camp in Poland, he met Amon Goeth, the tall SS officer who killed randomly and inspired fear in the inmates whenever he appeared. After the war, the author joined US Army intelligence to help hunt down Goeth and other Nazis, because he had seen their faces and could identify them. He did in time help find Goeth and others. With 150 members of his family dead, he did what he could to avenge them, spending his life after the war to help bring Nazi criminals to justice. He also helped Jewish orphans rebuild their lives.    

This is a firsthand account of a man who not only survived the Holocaust but dedicated his life to avenging the dead but also to aiding the survivors. The author’s experiences are sometimes difficult to read, as it chronicles not just the horror of the Holocaust but also the history of anti-Semitism in Europe. The book is thoroughly readable, however, and even when difficult, should be read, particularly as time makes more doubt the events.

The Survivor: How I Made it Through Six Concentration Camps and Became a Nazi Hunter (Josef Lewkowicz with Michael Calvin, Harper Horizon, New York NY, 2025, 272 pp., photographs, $29.99, HC)