First published in 1988, each experience of the ‘journey back from hell’ is unique, and readers are free to draw their own conclusions from what the survivors tell them. But the combined effect of the stories is so poignant and important to the core experience of the 20th century that nobody can afford to turn away — or to forget. ‘Brilliant, compelling...an inspiration’ – Mail on Sunday ‘Excellent’ – Dirk Bogarde, Daily Telegraph Anton Gill has been a freelance writer since 1984, specialising in European contemporary history but latterly branching out into historical fiction. He is the winner of the H H Wingate Award for non-fiction for ‘The Journey Back From Hell’. He is also the author of ‘Into Darkness’, ‘Dance Between the Flames’ and ‘An Honourable Defeat’. Endeavour Press is the UK's leading independent digital publisher. For more information on our titles please sign up to our newsletter at www.endeavourpress.com. Each week you will receive updates on free and discounted ebooks. Follow us on Twitter: @EndeavourPress and on Facebook via http://on.fb.me/1HweQV7. We are always interested in hearing from our readers. Endeavour Press believes that the future is now.

    Throughout the war years, Vera kept a diary, recording her day-to-day experiences, her longing for her parents, her hopes, and her prayers for the freedom of her country. By the time she returned to Prague to set up home with her aunt in 1945, she knew that both her parents had died—her mother in Belsen, her father on a death march. She came back to England in 1949 and has lived there ever since. The memories and emotions rekindled by a reunion of the Czech school in Wales where she was educated encouraged Vera to go back to her diaries and the letters from her parents that she had not touched for 40 years, resulting in this powerful and moving account of the life of one child growing up in extraordinary circumstances.

    Throughout the collection, Heaney's gifts as a wise and genial reader are exercised with characteristic exactness, and we are reminded, above all, of the essentially gratifying nature of poetry itself.

    His struggle to survive a war he scarcely comprehends is rendered in the urgent, beautifully spare, memorable prose of a born storyteller.

    Sir Issac Newton's 'short chronicle from the first memory of things in Europe, to the Conquest of Persia byAlexander the Great'

    When war broke out, in 1939, she was already achieving her first successes, As a harpist she had been heard at the Salle Erard. Her stories were appearing on the children's page of 'Le Figaro' and broadcast on Radiodiffusion Francaise, her 'Twenty Jataka Tales' being brought out by a London publisher; she was just founding a children's newspaper. Later she was betrayed to the Sicherheitsdienst and as a prisoner of importance was held at their HQ on the Avenue Foch. After a daring attempt to escape, via the roof, she refused to give parole and was sent to Germany, where she was kept for most of the time in chains, before being shot at Dachau. She was posthumously awarded the George Cross and the Crois de Guerre.

    Only in the waning days of World War II, did he begin to learn of the terror and cruelty that would come to characterize the Nazi reign. And only after years of soul-searching would he begin to accept the role that he had played. This complelling story complements and expands on Heck's autobiography, A Child of Hitler, in which he describes his childhood and life as a member and high-ranking leder of the Hitler Youth. The final chapters of the book introduce us to Heck's relationship with Helen Waterford, author of Commitment to the Dead and a survivor of the Aushwitz death camp. These two met in 1980 and formed a truly unique partnership. Heck and Waterford gave presentations side-by-side to audiences at more than 300 colleges and universities. The final chapter repeats many of the questions audiences would ask and Heck's answers. His openness provides much insight into the how's and why's of the Holocaust.