Gatehouse to Hell
- Publisher
- Azrieli Foundation
- Initial publish date
- Sep 2013
- Category
- Jewish Studies, 20th Century, Historical
-
eBook
- ISBN
- 9781897470725
- Publish Date
- Sep 2013
- List Price
- $6.99
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Description
Felix Opatowski is only fifteen years old when he takes on the perilous job of smuggling goods out of the Lodz ghetto in exchange for food for his starving family. It is a skill that will serve him well as he tries to stay alive in Nazi-occupied Poland. With dogged determination, Felix endures months of harrowing conditions in the ghetto and slave labour camps until he is deported to the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp in the fall of 1943. Gatehouse to Hell is a candid and heart-rending account of a teenage boy who comes of age in desperate conditions, putting himself at risk to help others, forming bonds of friendship and holding onto hope for the future.
About the author
Felix Opatowski was born in Lodz, Poland, on June 15, 1924. He was liberated in Austria by the US army on May 9, 1945, and worked at a US army base where he married his wife, Regina, in 1947. Felix and Regina arrived in Toronto in 1949, where they have lived ever since .