Miracle: The Boys Who Escaped the Gas Chamber at Auschwitz by Michael Calvin and Naftali Schiff
Michael Calvin, co-author with Josef Lewkowicz of The Survivor: How I Made It through Six Concentration Camps and Became a Nazi Hunter, and Rabbi Naftali Schiff, founder of Jewish Futures and active educator who travels worldwide interviewing Holocaust survivors to preserve their stories and legacy, have documented a powerful, formerly unreported true story, Miracle: The Boys Who Escaped the Gas Chamber at Auschwitz.
On October 10, 1944, coincident with the annual ‘Simchat Torah’ celebration of public reading of the Torah, 51 Jewish boys aged 13-17 who had been packed into an Auschwitz gas chamber with approximately 750 others were miraculously spared execution. Their identification cards already stamped “gestorben” (dead); the entire group had been stripped and marched into Crematoria 5. As the heavy doors closed and just moments before the poisonous Zyklon B pellets were released, three German officers suddenly roared up on motorcycles and ordered the evacuation of the chamber. A trainload consignment of potatoes had arrived from Greece, necessitating an immediate work crew to be assembled to unload and plant the tubers. Judged by their size and evident strength, 50 boys were selected while another plucky lad hid in a pile of clothing before joining them as they hastily dressed. The young men were marched off to unload the potatoes amidst agonized cries commingled with prayers as SS Commander Johann Schwarzhuber issued the order to kill the remaining prisoners.
An Unprecedented Reprieve at Auschwitz
This is the only known instance of a group of victims being reprieved after physically entering a death chamber. Among the German officers involved was the notoriously brutal SS doctor Heinz Thilo. The survivors of this miracle, who continued to endure unimaginable hardships until the camps were liberated, with few exceptions, did not speak of nor write about their experiences. During a twenty-year search after first learning of this extraordinary event, Rabbi Naftali Schiff was only able to identify and interview six of the 51, all of whom were Hungarian and raised in devout Orthodox Jewish families. Their eyewitness accounts and testimonies are recounted in Miracle: The Boys Who Escaped the Gas Chamber at Auschwitz. All have grappled with understanding why they were afforded an improbable second chance to live while multiple millions perished. Here we are inspired by their faith and determination to survive, rebuild their lives, raise families and pursue successful careers.
Preserving the Stories of the Boys Who Survived
The survivors whose identities and extensive biographical material are provided by Michael Calvin and Naftali Schiff are: Yaakov Yosef Weiss in Manchester, England who was 13 at the time of the event and the first survivor found by Rabbi Schiff in 2026, Hershel Herskovic in London, England, blinded by Nazi beatings and typhus but undaunted, Mordechai Eldar, Wolf Greenwald, Chaim Schwimmer and his cousin David “Dugo” Leitner.
The authors hope the publication of this book may assist in revealing the fates of the other remaining 45 teenagers. Certainly it cannot be assumed all survived the subsequent months in the camp or death marches before the camp liberations of 1945. Yaakov Yosef Weiss succinctly summed up their collective experiences: “There’s no survivor who didn’t experience absolute miracles.”
Michael Calvin and Naftali Schiff dedicated this book to their grandchildren: “May they use the lessons of the past to build a better future.” May we readers also mark, remember and share these horrific events from all-too recent history. Miracle represents another important entry in the essential and expanding body of Holocaust history.
